Tales of Kamino
by Teeter-Tottered
Summary: Sister story to Tales of Coruscant. Tales of the training years on Kamino, through the eyes of the cadets, their trainers, and their creators.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Star Wars and the wonderfulness of its Universe and all the characters and places within are property of George Lucas and Disney. I just like dipping my fingers in their stardust a bit :)

~Tales of Kamino~

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They stood with their toes along the edge of the platform, backs to the wind and eyes to the sea. Two small identical outlines against the threads of sun hemming the horizon.

The last fingers of light blazed a path across the water, flashing on the ripples and spilling gold on their boots.

They both stooped to marvel at it, running small fingers across the tops of their feet as though hoping to snag it in their grasp in some way. But it wasn't something to be caught and it receded with the rest of the light, sparks flashing bright and crimson before them once more, then fading until the waves were cool and shadow. Together they rose to gaze across the surface in silence. The currents had became a vague and dark mass beneath and around them as far as the eye could see.

37 finally sat, breaking the spell of their immobile wonder with legs dangling over the edge and small hands gripping the rim of the platform. The breeze was beginning to pick up and he closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation of it ruffling his tunic and hair, letting it rock his feet.

28 looked down at him with a frown.

"Don't fall."

37 opened his eys and looked up at the other boy with a grin.

"I won't unless you push me." 28 rolled his eyes but sat beside him, legs crossed and hands on his knees. Not quite as close to the edge as 37, but as close as he dared.

" It just feels...nice." 37 sighed then flung himself back upon the platform, arms out and boots still hanging over the edge. He felt 28 twitch beside him although he quickly corrected himself by feigning indifference.

37 chuckled and gave him a conspiratorial look.

"Worth it, right?"

28 studied the horizon for a few moments. His head swiveled as he took it all in. The gloss of the sea and the sizzle of the waves. The hiss of the water below connecting with the stilted legs of the platform. The salt-fresh smell of the wind.

He'd been outside only once so far in his life, but that one time had left a craving that just hadn't be satiated by any virtual experience since. He knew there would likely be a day when he'd be outside for far longer than he liked. A time when he might curse the sun on his back or the rain on his face. He knew there would be. But right now he couldn't imagine it. Right now it was new and wondrous.

He held out a small hand to catch the breath of the wind against his palm. The recycled air within the complex felt nothing like this. It seemed suddenly stagnant and lifeless in comparison. This air was fresh and free and danced like water between his fingers.

When he looked up 37 was watching him with a small smile.

At last 28 nodded, although he frowned again.

"We'd better head back."

"Just a little longer. We have all day, every day to be back in there. I want to enjoy this while we can."

"We won't enjoy anything else if they catch us." 28 raised an eyebrow and glanced over his shoulder a little nervously. He couldn't see much.

"Cleaning detail can be enjoyable."

"I think this is above cleaning detail repercussions."

37 frowned. "You think?" The question was genuine. He obviously hadn't considered that.

28 wasn't surprised. 37 usually didn't think things through further than what he assumed would take place. And all his assumptions were based on previous experiences. He had no fear whatsoever of acquiring new ones, good or bad. By his logic, he'd survived so far and therefore would weather whatever came somehow or rather.

It was a mindset that made him fun and daring, but also careless. Sometimes too careless.

"It's just a thought."

37 seemed to consider his words, or perhaps just responded to the worry in his friend's face. He let out a long breath and rose.

"Alright. Let's get back."

They both gave their surroundings one last long look, catching the sound of the sea in their ears and the taste of the breeze in their mouths. They raised their heads to the sky. The stars were too far and faint to be useful for vision, but the expanse of them was breathtaking. Especially considering how rarely the planet's storms paused their raging to offer a clear view.

They made their way to the far side of the platform, the wind dancing off the soles of their feet, masking the small squeaks of their boots with whispers of incoming rain. It took long minutes in the darkness but finally they half tripped upon what they sought, and with deft fingers found purchase on the lip of the ventilation cover.

With a few grunts they managed to pry it from the platform enough to squeeze through. 37 held it up with his back and motioned for 28 to slip into the passage first. The grate was heavy and he struggled with the weight, wobbling a bit before finding good footing. 28 got on his stomach and scooted backwards between 37's legs, his own legs dipping into the tube. Once inside, there was a bar which could be used to prop the grate open enough for 37 to follow.

They were so focused on their task that they didn't notice they were being observed until the voice came, deep and throaty in the darkness and a tall dark figure leaned over them.

"So that's how you came."

They both jumped so badly in surprise that 28 knocked into 37's leg and he toppled on top of 28, completely losing his grasp on the grate. It would have come down on them heavily if a hand hadn't caught it and prevented it form doing so.

But as perilous as that would have been, the two boys seemed oblivious to it, the fear of the figure towering above them numbing them to anything else.

They scrambled to their feet and snapped to attention.

The grate was allowed to fall heavily back into place and the sound was sharp and loud, a metallic screech against the grooves of its fitting. The figure resumed its full height and it towered over them, thin and stark and faintly illuminated in the night.

The kaminoan regarded them thoughtfully for a brief time, taking in the purposely blank faces and resolute gazes. The painfully perfect postures and visibly quaking shoulders. He was aware that their bodies ran at a higher temperature than his, and that the air was chill to their skin. But he doubted that was the cause of their shivering.

"Cadets. You are far from your barracks, and I imagine without permission. Am I correct?"

"Yes, sir." The one on the left answered, and he managed to do so without the trembling of his shoulders carrying to his voice. The other audibly swallowed.

Others of the tall being's kind may have used this opportunity to amuse themselves. To revel in the obvious fear of the two younglings, to get a rise from punishing them.

He guessed others had, judging by the reactions of the two before him.

Others who fed their egos with beliefs of superiority or satisfied their cravings of control by taking advatage of the unwavering obedience of their charges.

Senim Te was not of that character.

"Best head back, then."

He spoke softly and said no more, but stepped to the side and gestured with a long arm which caught the shine of the stars for them to go.

Their uniforms ruffled softly as they shifted with confusion.

"S-sir?" The one on the right ventured at last. He licked his lips before continuing. "Our punishment was...?"

Unable to look the figure before him in the eyes properly due to the darkness, the cadet had settled his stare on his boots.

Senim Te blinked and regarded them curiously.

"I gave none. Do you wish for one?"

The cadet's gaze danced over his feet.

"No. Sir. We just...I mean, don't we...need one?" He was blinking rapidly as though doing so fueled his ability to speak. The other cadet had an expression of deep confusion on his face, trying to make sense of his friend's words, or perhaps Senim Te's. At least the boy was no longer trembling, he noticed.

Senim Te pondered the question. He supposed it wouldn't do to send them back without some sort of reprimand. If nothing else, it might prevent future instances of wayward behavior which would lead to punishments by others less willing to see it as positive light as he did.

If he was honest to his thoughts, and not matching his musings to regulations which he often skirted, the appreciation and deep wonder of the two cadets for the night and the sea, which he had observed in silence without their knowing, far surpassed the importance of their disregard for rules to Senim Te.

It meant so much more in the scheme of things. That the blind obedience of their charges wasn't so blind as he'd thought. That it could be overridden by curiosity and desire.

That was something he'd like to think on, and witness more within these small beings, so brave on their own yet timid in his presence. Perhaps proper circumstances were necessary.

He gave them one more roving glance and an idea came upon him then.

"Very well, cadets. Cleaning detail for two weeks."

He saw the gratefulness in their faces, the slight relaxing of their shoulders. They were once more in familiar territory and had a grasp of what to expect, which seemed to bring a world of comfort to them. Another curiosity for ones so disobedient and intermittently daring.

With two curt nods and snapped salutes the younglings began making their way in the direction SenimTe had pointed before.

The sky was black by now and they stumbled slightly due to their blindness. With a fluid movement, Senim Te caught pace with them and placed a hand on each small shoulder, steering them beyond the domed walls and around the building to the entrance. They were so small he had to stoop to do so and they both flinched at the contact. But neither pulled away and they allowed themselves to be guided without protest.

Their pace steadied greatly and quickened once the light of the door and the hallways within fell upon them.

Senim Te pulled his hands away and stopped to watch them enter. They both paused, turning on their heels lightly to look back at him once more before entering, as though confirming it was his request.

He inclined his head and smiled, although kaminoan facial expressions seemed largely unreadable to their kind.

"One last thing cadets..."

They both eyed him in rapt unison.

"For your cleaning detail you will report to me, on this platform. Your tasks will be performed out of doors in the evenings. Dress appropriately."

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Let me know what you guys think :)

Just a note, this is a companion tale to Tales of Coruscant, and although no reading of that story is required to follow this one, you might find it neat to pair the men they grow into with their childhood tales.

For any of you who have read TOC, could you guess who the cadets were? (They are both OC's featured in TOC).

Also, regarding TOC...sorry! I've been having some mad writer's block on Cody's chapter. It should hopefully be done by Tuesday, though. Sorry for the wait, and hope you enjoyed this one! I wanted to get something out to you guys to make up for it, and I've been thinking on this one for a while. Feels good to finally take the plunge on it.


	2. Chapter 2

TGP and CaptainReb: I'm so glad you guys are reading this one too! I was hoping you would and curious what you guys would think :)

The two cadets in chapter 1 were Surge (28) and Ravi (37) at around age 2 standard years. And this chapter introduces Trust (62) and Hatch at 6 standard years. I hope you guys like it!

Mandalore the freedom: Thank you for your review! I have several trainers set for the story right now that aren't Mandalorian, but I do have plans to include Kal and Vau and Jango, Boba and the nulls at some point. The truth is, I love Mandalorians, but because of my fangirlishness towards them I'm a little afraid to create a true Mando OC of my own. I think I have a fear that I'll do them terribly or botch the language or something. But , I do promise to try! Maybe I'll get braver as I go on. ;)

Note: (in regards to the T rating for this story). There are probably going to be some dark tales for 28, 37, and 62. This chapter touches on that a little. Their trainer is very unkind, to say the least. Just a heads up.

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62's knee caught the jagged crust of the ledge as he heaved himself over, and he bit his lip against the fresh slice of pain but kept going. His fingers and palms, worn raw from losing grip on a cable earlier, screamed bloody and searing against the grit of the ground as he wormed himself forward enough to rise.

With shaking legs and ragged breaths he stumbled as upright as he could manage and made a break for the last obstacle of the course. He'd lost precious minutes from his slip-up earlier and had no intention of losing any more. The advantage he'd gained through quickness in the beginning of the course had been lost, and the pride and relief which had accompanied that had now given way to a numbing fear.

At this point, his desire was far more humbled, his goal only this : don't finish last.

His trainer wasn't keen on losers.

62 fell to his knees, ignoring the pain of the pull against the scrapes. He fumbled with the knot tied around the anchored stake with his torn fingers. All he had to do was untie it and carry it to the finish. That was all he had left. That was all he needed to do.

He fought with the rope furiously, puling and pressing the tension of it, trying to slip fingertips between the twined links enough to find purchase to tug.

Beside him, other cadets who hadn't completed the course yet were stooping to do the same.

He could see 28 and 37 out of the corner of his eye, together as usual, separating only to tackle their individual stakes.

Within a minute they both had theirs free, 28 a few breaths faster, but he waited as each of them always did for the other before moving on.

A cold wash of panic raced through 62, seeing more and more cadets untying the bonds and finishing. His pace was frantic and his eyes stung from focusing so harshly on the braided bonds that whispered off his wet fingers and slithered like biting snakes against his palms. He grasped them again and again, trying to catch hold of the threads. Alternating strategies and then repeating them with desperation.

But the rope remained unyielding.

37 finished and nodded at 28. They both stepped forward, about to take the sprint to the finish together, but hesitated.

They had caught sight of 62 still fighting with his rope and exchanged glances between them. Their eyes vaulted from the end of the course and back at 62 in unison.

28 lifted an eyebrow at 37, who gave a shrug and they both turned around and stepped over to 62 to take up stances at his side.

62 paused to yell up at them.

"What are you doing?!"

"Waiting for you. Come on."

"Get going!" 62 grated and went back to plying the knots.

"Ach. Your hands..." 28 crinkled his nose and leaned closer.

"I'm fine. Get. Going."

"Think he's watching?" 37 asked of their trainer, glancing at the chamber overlooking the course.

"Of course he is." 28 replied without looking up.

37 turned his back to the viewing glass and looked down at 62. He gave 28 a sideways look.

"Untie the knots. I'll block the view."

62 looked up sharply and growled.

"I don't need your help."

37 tutted. "Your hands are done, 62. You can't-"

62 kicked him in the leg hard enough to make him yelp. 28 took a tentative step back but remained, while 37 rubbed the smarting spot on his shin and fixed 62 with a glare.

62 responded in kind.

"You know what he'll do to you if you help. You'll already be in trouble for stopping!"

The thought made 62's chest twinge with guilt. He didn't like either of the other cadets much. The two of them were the worst of their trainer's batch and more often than not their antics got everyone in trouble.

But, on the other hand, they were also the only ones left who still spoke to him.

Over the years he'd managed to offend, anger or scare off everyone else to the point where they all left him well alone by now. Which suited him fine.

He happened to be one of the most unfortunate clones in the existence of all his brothers, somehow always managing to screw up anything and everything he set out to do through some miraculous feat. He didn't know why.

He was just as fast and strong as the others. And more often than not he worked twice as hard.

Yet, somehow he always managed to bungle things up. Usually just when things were going well. Or at the last minute. He was surprised he'd been around long enough to count six and a half years of life to his credit.

62 was actually pretty certain the trainer only refused to hand him over to the lab-techs for the simple reason that he proved an exceptional example of how not to be for everyone else.

And Rardyrth did use him for that specific purpose often, seeming to glean some small amusement for himself out of it while doing so as well. His scathing scorn for 62 wasn't a secret.

His brothers were all intelligent enough to stay clear of him for that reason alone.

Except these two.

They were both almost completely indifferent to the whims of their trainer. Neither was immune to fear or pain, but years of being on his bad side had hardened their regard for his opinion of themselves or anyone else. Someone else might have found a bond for comraderie in the fellowship of that fall from grace, but 62 didn't. And his bullish behavior didn't work as a deterrent on them.

Which made things worse. They'd allowed themselves to be pulled down with him before many times over the years. He hated it. That guilt. Hated knowing that they'd still be there at the end of the day, waiting for him to get back from medical or whatever punishment their trainer cooked up for him that week. He hated it when 37 handed him food snuck from the mess whenever he missed a meal. And the way 28 used up half his own med kit patching him up after yet another mishap. He hated them.

He aimed another kick but 37 dodged it this time. He stepped out of range of 62's blows but no farther.

28 was chewing his cheek. He knew they really couldn't help. That doing anything further would have worse repercussions for 62 than he already faced for being last. Worse than what they were already due to receive for lingering.

He let out a breath and looked resolutely at 37. "Let's go."

37 scowled. His eyes dipped to 62, who had finally gotten the second knot loose.

"We've already stayed this long. Whats a few more minutes?"

62 was ignoring them. The loosening of several knots had buoyed him somewhat.

"Because if we leave him behind, Rardyrth will be more lenient than if we stay."

37's face clowded with frustration, but after a few minutes he finally conceded with a long sigh and turned to go. He gave a quick glance at 62 over his shoulder.

"We'll see you at the finish." He flashed a small smile. "Don't take too long. You know how happy Rardyrth always is to see us!" He joked.

62 just growled.

They jogged to the finish and stood beside their comrades, who shifted slightly away from them.

62 had one knot left.

And he couldn't do it.

His hands were slick with blood and his fingers sang with pain. His arms shook and his vision blurred even though he scrubbed an arm furiously across his face.

The last cadet (thankfully of another trainer's batch and not 28 and 37-that would've made things worse than they already were) had finished a full minute ago. The course was empty around him and he knew, he knew Rardyrth was watching and growing angrier. 62 didn't dare look up.

Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and he buried his face in his tunic briefly. He closed his eyes and willed himself to stop crying and finish. Just...finish.

"Hey! Need some help? "

62's head snapped up and he blinked through foggy eyes in confusion. Another cadet was stooped beside him, giving him a sideways look. His chest was heaving and he was bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"Oof! How fun was that climb, right? "

62 looked at him like he had two heads.

The cadet gave him a grin and sat beside him, close enough that their knees were touching. He fanned his face a little, still panting, his eyes roving over 62, head to feet. He caught sight of 62s hands and grimaced.

"Yikes. Here..." He looked around as though searching for something but there was nothing by them to find.

With a shrug he untied his belt and made to grab 62's hand.

62 jerked away.

"Don't touch me! "

The other cadet pulled back a little at the rage-laced response, blinking.

"Well, alright. " He said at last. He raised his knees and laid an arm across them, staring at 62 strangely.

62 went back to fiddling with the last knot with a fresh fervor, trying to finish and get away from the other cadet as quickly as possible.

"...Do you need help?"

62 let out a snarl. The pain of his hands hardened his voice to a cruel tone.

"Get. Away. From. Me." He fixed the other cadet with a dangerous look.

The cadet blinked at him before a slow smile spread across his face and he gave 62 a half-lidded stare, pressing his face closer. 62 could feel the heat of his breath on his cheek.

"No." He said simply. Matter-of-factly.

62 was blinded by an intense fury born of desperation and pain so powerful that he raised his arm and smacked the other cadet upside the head before his mind caught up.

The sound of the blow echoed throughout the chamber, a harsh clap that shook them both, abrupt and shearing of the silence. A collective gasp rose from the cadets at the end line as 62's eyes widened with the shock of impact which set flames of pain up his arm, and the realization of what he'd done.

The other cadet had a splatter of blood across his right temple from 62's palm, and rivulets of the red made thin lacy paths down his cheek. He wore a surprised expression, his mouth forming a small 'o' as he regarded 62.

62 cringed at him and opened his mouth to say...he didn't know what. An apology, another cry to be left alone, a scream.

But then the other cadet gave a loud laugh. The air between them crackled with it and 62 edged back a little more.

The cadet chuckled for a minute before standing and shaking his head in mirth and turning his back to 62. He then walked slowly away, belt swaying a long loop from his fingers and boots crunching ground.

62 watched him go with still lips but writhing insides, and burning cheeks. He swallowed down the familiar acid of bile that had risen in his throat and returned to the knot. The altercation had taken his mind off the pain enough to disregard it temporarily, but his stomach roiled.

He'd gone too far. Even for him. He'd never fully struck another cadet before, outside of training purposes or the occasional half-committed recourse towards 37 . He wondered what Rardyrth would do after seeing that. Probably something terrible. Something new. He knew he should be worried about it.

And yet, somehow... that didn't seem to matter. At least, not as much as what the other cadet probably thought of him. Which was a foreign feeling and thoughts for 62. He never cared what others thought. Actually, he had made a pretty stellar point of not caring for years.

He swallowed and shook his head. With luck, that cadet would never come near him again.

62 pulled an inner thread loose and the knot opened enough for him to snag another strand and tug it free. Almost there. He chewed on his inner cheek so roughly his saliva was salt-dapple metallic against his tongue.

At last the knot came free.

He rose slowly, woodenly, and realized he didn't have the strength to run. He could barely stand. His feet took up a hobble in the direction of the finish almost on their own and he let them. His eyes were on the ground and the anchor was slime and cool in his hand, the alloy pooling blood at the tip.

Almost there.

His knee gave a sharp twinge, voicing its protest and he almost stumbled to the ground.

But an arm suddenly looped his waist from behind and steadied his footing as his own arm was tugged up and over a shoulder and tucked around someone's neck.

62 looked with surprise into the face of the cadet from before.

The cadet grinned at him, his cheek still red with blood.

"I knew you could do it!" He said cheerfully. "I just, you know...wanted help." He made emphatic gestures with the arm that wasn't wrapped around 62. After speaking his expression turned embarrassed but his eyes were smiling as he regarded his limping companion.

62 was too shocked to do anything but let himself be pulled along. His eyes passed over the other cadet like he was an apparition, gaze falling from his face to his free hand as his eyes caught movement. He saw the other cadet now held an anchor of his own.

There was a vague warning in the back of 62's mind that came and went in the incessant mutters of his inner voice. That the other cadet shouldn't be helping him. Couldn't be. He'd get in trouble.

His mouth finally caught up.

"Stop...helping me." He hissed.

The cadet have him a cheeky look.

"You gonna slap me again?"

62 pleaded. He barely had the strength to walk let alone shove him away. He was too ashamed to look in the cadet's eyes as he spoke. He was bringing someone else down. He glowered at the floor.

"You'll get in trouble! "

"What? "

"For helping me."

"No I won't." The cadet's voice was confused. "What makes you think that? "

62 looked at him directly, incredulous. The cadet obviously had a screw loose. Or several. That explained a lot. He let a breath pass his lips and considered. The air against the marks left by gnashing his teeth against his lips earlier burned and he closed them to breath through his nose. The cadet's arm was warm against his back and side, and the radiance of that and the relief of the weight off his injured knee made 62 feel indebted to him. Even if he was crazy. Maybe he could reason with him a different way...

"Let me go, and finish before me. Or you'll finish last." Surely that was a universal threat. No one was allowed to finish last without some punishment.

"It happens." The cadet appeared completely unfazed. "Hey, what's your name?"

When 62 didn't answer he tried with a little humor. "Come on. The guys are going to want to know the name of the guy who clocked me! They're never going to stop telling that one..." He stole a glance at the viewing port of the monitoring station overhead and a goofy grin crossed his face. "Zan and Baro are probably still laughing."

62 guessed those were the cadet's trainers. He couldn't imagine grinning at the idea of Rardyrth laughing on his behalf. That merriment always preceded very miserable things for him and his fellows. He decided the cadet at his side was very, very not well in the head, and then secretly swore to himself that that fact would remain forever out of the grasp of their creators, if he could help it.

No matter what. They weren't tolerant of defects. He'd been riding the top of their list long enough to know that.

They passed over the finish line together and the cadet didn't release him until they reached the bench which was against the wall. He eased 62 down onto it and sat down beside him.

28 and 37 and several of what 62 guessed were the other cadet's squad crowded around. 28 knelt in front of 62 to have a look at his hands.

62 watched him numbly, letting 28 do so without pulling away with a growl like he usually did. Around them the members of the other cadet's batch were tittering over the slap he'd received. 37 put himself between them and 62 at the commotion, anticipating revenge of some sort on their part as the cadet's comrades.

But they just started guffawing in good nature and gave the other cadet intermittent playful smacks and pats on the shoulder.

62, 28, and 37 watched them in astonishment. How could they be laughing? Weren't they worried about the punishment they'd receive for their mate coming in last?

The cadet laughed along with his brothers for a few more minutes before holding a hand out to 62. He gave a smile of mischief and comraderie. And friendship. 62 stared at it.

"I'm Hatch, by the way."


	3. Chapter 3

~Tales of Kamino Chapter 3~

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It was the one thing they couldn't seem to be broken of, no matter what he did. And he was growing weary of it.

Rardyrth watched as the cadets made their way through the simulation seemlessly. Dodges and strikes, blaster fire and calls, signals, formation, reflexes. Fast. Faster than before, and matching pace with the top squads on the course.

A smooth wave pressing its path over ground, edges foam and froth to the resistance. One droid shot down in a flash of sparks, another disabled and downed by two bodies against it. The wave cresting at the barrier of barbed fencing, then overspilling it, rushing past.

One smooth strong, seemless current.

And then it broke, the curve of its front snapped by the burst of a triggered landmine. A bright flare of heat and alloy and a scream of pain.

One cadet was down and wriggling on the floor from pain, hands clasped over his face. It didn't matter, if they pressed on. It was just one. A fraction of their force. If they pressed on the surge of them would still succeed. He watched them hard through the viweing glass. Waiting.

Conitinue on. Press the attatck. Move. Succeed.

But they didn't.

At the sound of their brother's cry, they had frozen. Turned. Lost sight of the objective.

Rardyrth watched as two cadets fell to their knees beside their comrade. Then a tentative third, a fourth. Their hands were on him, even as their eyes turned to the viewport above. For what reason, Rardyrth wasn't sure. It was something they always did - that seeking out of his attention in the throws of their failure. Was it permission they sought? Or forgiveness? Fear?

A few others fell to positions of watching and guarding around them, deflecting or drawing away the practice fire from the droids advancing on them, while the rest continued on to complete the course. Too few. They didn't succeed.

Rardyrth slammed his fist against the glass and left the room to step onto the course. He waved a hand to stay the medical droid at the sidelines and walked through the knots of boys who melted to the side and snapped to attention as he passed.

The cadets on the floor rose under his gaze, the first two pulling the injured cadet to his feet as the others retreated a small ways away and straightened sharply.

Rardyrth could tell who the cadets before him were by their eyes. The shifting of 28's to the floor beneath knitted brows on the right. The open glare of 62 at the left. Between them 37 was balanced unsteadily, stare impassive but for the leaking of his eyes from pain.

Rardyrth reached down and gripped 37's chin in his hand and turned the cadet's face to inspect the injury. Shrapnel had caught him at the temple on the right side of his forehead, searing and slicing a mark there. Pieces of it remained, though it looked like the largest one had been removed. Blood seeped into the cadet's eye beneath the edge of it and he blinked it away as he stared past Rardyrth.

"Get him to medical. Then return to the barracks." Rardyrth hissed, his tone promising consequences.

They ambled off together and Rardyrth turned to the remaining cadets, arms crossed and hot anger.

They knew the consequences well for letting fallen comrades stay their mission. Yet they still disregarded his orders against it. Repeatedly. Instinctively.

Even for those who were ostracized in all other endeavors.

It was something the Trandoshan trainer couldn't for the life of him make sense of. Had he been training the young of his kind, it wouldn't happen.

This species was soft and weak. Unfit and unorganized. Terrible reaction time and even worse instincts. Rardyrth didn't understand why it had been chosen as a template for an army. He shook his head of it daily.

But the pay was good, and for whatever his fellow trainers thought of him, he was a man of honor. He took his job seriously. Whatever may come of it, no one would be able to say his batch was untrained.

Rardyrth ordered them all back to the barracks, seething.

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37 gave a knock at the door and entered at the soft call from within. A kaminoan was performing some checks on another cadet across the room and motioned over her shoulder for him to take a seat on the exam table to his right.

He sat, a hand on the edge and back against the cool of the wall, fingers subconciously making their way to the fresh wound at his temple. The tech at the med bay had removed the metal grit from within and sanitized it before applying a smear of bacta. It would heal clean and quick although the scar would remain, seared there forever. Another mark to remind him of failure. The brush of his fingertips made it twinge and weep and he let his hand fall to his lap and glanced at the figures across the room.

He recognized the kaminoan who stood passing a scanner over one of his brothers, her form a thin and stately familiarity. Liquid chime voice and cool touch. Nala Se. He let out a breath. She was one of the kind ones, and 37 liked her. If he had been given a choice of the technician to clear him to return and make note in his file, it would have been her or Senim Te.

He watched her with interest. Reading the scanner's data, tapping notes to a holo-file and rising. She spoke too softly for him to catch what she said to the other cadet, but her voice was clear and pretty as she addressed him while stepping across the room. In a sea of male tenor, the femininity of her voice was both fascinating and soothing to him.

"I need to retrieve something. I will return"

He straightened and gave her a nod. "Yes, Doctor."

After she left, 37's attention fell to the other cadet who sat openly eyeing him as well. His hair was shorn very short, shorter than any other 37 had seen on any brother. Just a black fuzz on his head, shaved completely on one side in a strip as though for recent surgery.

He wore the same training tunic as everyone, the symbol of his training batch on his sash. A touch pale and thin, but nothing out of the norm for someone in recovery.

His eyes roved 37 with obvious interest and after a minute he gave a smile and walked across the room and sat beside him on the table. The lining of it crinkled and squeaked beneath him.

37 tensed, unsure of his intentions, but didn't flinch when the other boy touched fingers to his head.

"New scar?" He asked. "Looks neat, Like an 'x'. Training?"

He took his fingers away to grip the table at his sides and 37 relaxed a little. He nodded.

"Anything serious?'

"No, back to duty after this." 37 answered with an exuberance he didn't feel.

"Ah. That's good then."

The boy smiled and moved on to looking around the room. He had a calm way about him. Friendly but unpresuming. Accepting.

37 turned to face him.

"How about you?" He gestured to the cadet's shaved head. "Training?"

He got a laugh in response, and 37 cocked his head in confusion.

The cadet tapped his head and gave him a small smile. "Seizures."

37's eyes widened and he quickly focused on the floor, his knuckles white against the table's edge.

Seizures. It was a foul word to him, a dark memory. A cadet shaking and restrained on the floor one day, and then gone the next, his bunk never slept in again.

37 knew it happened occasionally, an error of code or transcription, or the freak response to a training sim. Out of perfect millions, there arose errors now and then.

It was one of many paths to losing comrades, or being terminated yourself. Production error. The kaminoans were as forgiving of such a thing as Rardyrth was of performance errors, although those were more common. Due to the necessity of vigorous and exhaustive training, cadets were prone to the repercussions of those on a daily basis.

Rardyrth's batch was down three due to both of those things. Three who would never fulfill their purpose of creation. Three who no longer ate and drank or slept or trained with brothers. Two training casualties and one defective from production. The two who had accidents, there was nothing that could be done for them that would return them to standard for being allowed to live. And the third, nothing anyone could do to prevent him being taken away. Not even Rardyrth, for all his power. Not that Rardyrth would've had the inclination to keep him anyway. Imperfect clones who couldn't fulfill their purpose weren't of use, or value, to anyone. Fact of life.

He must've had a dark look on his face because he felt the other cadet's arms circle him suddenly and he jerked in surprise. The other boy said nothing, but held him tight and put a cheek to his and ran a soft hand over his back.

37 flushed with heated shame. He was being comforted by a brother who was about to die.

"It's alright." The boy holding him said quietly.

He should be saying that!

37 returned the gesture at once, wrapping his arms around the other cadet, chest twinging. He didn't know what to say, so settled on the embrace, fingers clutching the fabric of his tunic tightly.

The other cadet gave him a bright, mischievous grin.

"Don't hold me too tight. We just met!"

37 blinked in surprise and the cadet pulled away laughing. He held out a hand. "Rush. What's your name?"

37 gave him a long look before answering, trying to make sense of him. Wasnt he afraid? Surely he knew his fate. "37."

The other boy arched a brow. "Not your number, your name."

37 shook his head and the cadet looked confused.

"You don't want to say? Or...you don't have a name?"

37 shrugged, eyes to his boots, not understanding why it mattered. "Don't need one."

The other cadet stared at him for a bit, an odd expression passing over his face. He looked about to say something but the sound of the door whishing open then made them both turn that way.

Two men peered inside, then entered when they caught sight of Rush, flashes of relief on their faces as they approached.

37 recognized them and tensed, caught between dread and awe. They were trainers with reputations both wondrous and terrible.

The most notable thing about them being that they were notorious for their scores. Their batch was always among the top ranks in courses and sims, which drew ire from many trainers, including Rardyrth. Rardyrth was their rival of sorts, or at least he put himself and his cadets in that position of opposition and competition with them and theirs often, even though the results were never in his favor. He hated them with a passion that exceeded even his dislike of 37, 28, and 62.

37 imagined the feeling was reciprocal and the thought of them extending that emotion to his cadets wasn't far fetched. Their eyes on him made him nervous. His sash was evidence of his association with Rardyrth, and their eyes had flicked to it as they approached. One of them tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow at the sight.

Even so, the fear couldn't quite quell his curiosity of them and he sat staring back at them in spite of his mind telling him it was dangerous to do so. While 37 knew them through the heated resentment of his trainer, he also did by their unconventional methods, witnessed and whispered among his brothers as gossip and tall stories amid the din of meals or tossed between bunks at night or lulls in training.

Trainers who didn't punish for helping fallen comrades, but rather encouraged it. Men who laughed when their students came in last. Laughed with them. He'd witnessed that himself a year ago, when one of theirs had helped 62. The memory was burned in his mind, an event of wonder, beings of mystery. They were shadows, gossip, hated, whispers.

And now they were right in front of him, one of them motioning for him to scoot a little.

37 complied, eyes wide.

They were both human, or of close enough origin to be nearly indistinguishable from one. Tall. Taller than the template of he and his brothers by a couple inches at least. One with brown hair to his jaw and green eyes, and the other with short black hair and eyes that spoke of a mixed heritage, gold and catching of the light in a lupine way. He also had a long, thin scar across the bridge of his nose that spanned both cheekbones.

The one with brown hair sat between 37 and Rush on the table and reclined against the wall, arms across his chest and boots crossed at the ankles.

He grinned at Rush.

"You know, if you keep magically disappearing like that, we're going to have to put a tracker on you."

Rush laughed and responded with an ease that made 37's breath hitch. "Sorry! Miss Nala Se commed for me to come. I thought I'd be back before you got back." He looked between them curiously. "What happened with Trainer Kal? I thought he wanted to speak with you, Zan?" He looked to the man who was standing in front of them, arms crossed.

"Oh, not me." The black haired trainer gave a sardonic smile to the man who sat between them. "Just Baro."

Rush glanced to the man at his side. "Trouble?"

Baro shook his head and crossed his arms behind, eyebrows raising. "Just a what-for reminder from a very devoted father." He grinned at the cadet to his side. "Thinks I'm a bad influence on his boys."

Rush smiled. "But, you're a wonderful influence...Just for all the wrong things."

Zan snorted.

"Who says they're wrong?"

"Civilized society."

Baro tsked at that just as the over head lighting flickered above. There was a crackle of the room's intercomm, and then silence. The lights returned to normal, although a the faint shrill of a far off siren drifted from down the hall.

37 looked around. Those kinds of things had been happening rather frequently lately.

He returned his attention to the trainer at his side. Rush and Zan were eyeing him suspiciously. Baro gave them both an innocent look.

"What?"

Zan cocked an eyebrow.

"I haven't hacked the comm in over six months, and haven't discussed the how-to of it with certain boys in over three." Baro reasoned, waving a hand in front. "Wasn't me."

"You know their antics are driving Fett crazy. I'm sure he finds your contributions to that endearing."

"Fett loves me."

"He'd love to see you in constant and terrible pain."

Baro seemed to consider that for a minute, chewing his lip in thought, before a sudden laugh erupted from his lips. He continued for a short while before looking up at Zan.

"Did you know that Ordo flushed Boba's head down the fresher the other day?" He rubbed a finger across his nose, still chuckling. "I just remembered that..."

Zan exchanged his look of mock-disapproval for true joviality. He shook his head. "Your example?"

"What? No. Kid's a brat, but he's adorable. I wouldn't."

"But Ordo has no such reservations."

"Apparently not."

Zan chuckled and raised his eyes to the ceiling, fingers drumming atop crossed arms. Rush was grinning.

Baro seemed to remember 37 sitting there and flashed him a smile, which faded at the sight of his scar, then grew large and bright.

"Hey! I like your scar. 'X' marks the spot, right?" He reached out and traced the scar lightly with a fingertip, then winked. "Ravi."

37 jolted a little at the touch and blinked at him mutely , still in awe of the man who sat laughing and joking beside him so casually, a smile to his lips and fingers to his face.

"Treasure." Zan spoke, his eyes dropping from the ceiling to focus on 37. He gave the cadet a smile that flashed in his eyes as well. "Secret but valuable." 37 stared up at him raptly, unsure of how to respond but soaking it in. Remembering.

Baro hopped off the table with a grin. "In the old pirate tongue." He put a hand to one hip and shook a finger of the other at 37. "Don't ask how we know that." His eyes snapped to the door as it opened.

Nala Se walked back in, graceful as ever, although there was a brief snag of movement when her gaze fell on the two men.

37 wasn't a master reader of Kaminoan expression by a long shot, but he could swear a sigh passed her lips as she walked over to the desk at the far side of the room and placed her holopad on it.

"Miss Nala Se!" Baro seemed alight with her presence. "If I had known you were coming to see me..."

"I assure you, that is not the case."

"It's not?"

The female kaminoan glanced at him over her shoulder. "Our proximity would have been avoided if I had knowledge of it."

"...Are you saying you didn't want to see me?"

"In as many words."

Baro scrunched up his face in thought. "That doesn't bode well for our relationship does it?"

"There is no relationship between us, Trainer. Inter-species relations are forbidden by Kaminoan law." She turned fully to look down at Baro. Even as tall as he was, she still towered over him. "Many of them." She blinked her eyes, slow and deliberate. A Kaminoan expression of perplexity.

"But if you ever go rogue, you'll think of me, right?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Another liquid blink.

Zan made a point of stepping forward and between them, clearing his throat. He shot Baro a glare over his shoulder.

Nala Se looked to the black haired man, seemed to regain her composure and folded her hands before her, long arms a frame to her skeletal middle. She cocked her head to the side from atop the flower-stem neck, and spoke, words bubbling water once more, her annoyance replaced by pride.

"There has been a slight, noted improvement. The brain scan shows a significant difference in severity between this recent episode and ones prior."

"Hey. Good news!" Baro grinned and Zan stepped back over to Rush to give his head a brush of knuckles.

"We will continue testing and I will pursue further treatment options at your request."

"Our request, for sure." Zan placed a hand on Rush's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Let's head back, then. " he said to Rush, an affection to his voice that left 37 astounded. Rush hopped of the table and the trainer gave the cadet who remained sitting a last, brief smile, then followed his own out of the room. Rush gave 37 a grin and quick wave as they went and 37 stared at him, mouth gaping.

He was leaving. To return to his barracks. Not to be terminated. He was...

Safe.

Safe, even though he was imperfect. And he was allowed to be, and allowed to live. Zan's hand had rested on his shoulder, a symbol of immense value, given so easily and freely. A transference of an impossible immunity he somehow had the power to bestow.

37 watched them go, thunderstruck.

At the doorway the trainer paused and turned to give Nala Se a dip of his head. "Many thanks, Doctor Se."

Nala Se gave a curt nod in response, her eyes straying to Baro, who was still beside her. He clasped his hands to his chest and grinned at her.

"Miss Se, you are an angel. If there's anything we can do to repay your kindness..."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm nothing of the sort. My progress is not through unexplainable happenings, but by science and work. I require no favors in return. And certainly not" She scrutinized him with every ounce of her stare. Weighted and guarded. Her face flushed a little as she spoke. "From you."

Baro pouted but then gave a shrug and turned to go. He tousled 37's hair on the way out. "See you, Ravi." 37 Followed him with his eyes, and found himself staring after them, long minutes after they had gone. His thoughts still on them as Nala Se began her scan and still later, as he made his own way down the hall and back to the barracks.

Treasure.

Secret.

His name was both.

...

.

.

TGP: I'm glad you liked it! Also, thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you and ask silly questions :)

Cozzizzie: I was so mean to him! I'm pretty terrible. :( I want to rescue him myself now. Senim Te will be back. I have plans for him (and Zan and Baro and Rush) to make appearances in TOC later on, once I begin alignment with events in seasons 4, 5, and 6 in the show in the next few chapters of it. They're integral to it when order 66 happens.

CaptainReb: I just got your review as I was finishing this chapter. Happy Birthday! And...yep. I want to adopt a clone, too! Or a hundred. Living vicariously through my trainers, I think. :/


	4. Chapter 4

~Tales of Kamino Chapter 4~

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...

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.

He was out of time. There as never enough time. The end signal blared out above him, the sim ending and 28 remained kneeling on the floor staring where the brother he had just failed had been lying.

The room flashed then faded back to the simple empty chamber, grey alloy walls and tiled floor. The battlefield it had been moments ago disappearing along with the blasts and shaking earth, shouted orders and screams of the pleading and dying. His brothers. He'd lost every one of them. Each one he'd attempted to save fading beneath his hands, their lives slipping through his cursed fingers.

28 lifted his hands to stare at them, gloved and shaking. The blood had been phantom, illusion, but he could still feel it and see it slick dark shine on his palms.

He gathered the contents of his med-pack from the floor slowly, rerunning the scenarios over and over in his head. There had to be some way, some thing he could have done differently. Something he had forgotten and could remember next time to his brothers' benefit. He shook his head as he snapped his pack closed and made his way back to the barracks with a quick salute to Rardyrth on his way out. He knew he had the time to stop at the mess before it was time to sleep, but he didn't feel much like eating. His stomach roiled on the walk and he wondered how he'd be able to keep anything down when they really were out in the field. When the deaths and blood at his hands were real.

When he reached his bunk the space was largely empty, most of his brothers still at the mess. A few lingered at the far side of the barracks, polishing boots amid gossip. They spared 28 a glance, the normal quick check of identity and injury. Even though he was one of the avoided ones on general occasion due to fear of provoking disfavor with Rardyrth, they weren't inherently dismissive or unkind and very few would ignore if he openly needed aid.

28 gave them a quick tilt of his head and an empty smile, but it was enough to restore their attention to their own doings. He tucked his gear away and flopped face down, forehead resting on crossed arms, face in the pillow, closing his eyes and pleading sleep to come quickly.

...

Zan watched the cadet leave the room and turned to Rardyrth, who was bent over, had hands on the control console, seemingly staring right through it.

"You don't think that was a little much?"

Rardyrth's head snapped up.

"A little...much?"

Zan untucked an arm to raise it palm up at the viewport. "There was no way he could've saved any of them with the criteria you put in. He was set up fro failure from the start."

"That was the point. The purpose was not to succeed, only to persevere."

Zan looked at the other trainer in silence for a few minutes before returning his attention to the sim room.

"You don't agree with my tactics," Rardyrth mused.

"As much as you agree with mine, I imagine." Zan gave a small smile, but it soon faded. "That cadet has spark as a medic. One of the best I've seen." He looked at Rardyrth out of the corner of his eye. "I can't make out why you're so determined to quash it."

"As usual, you see things in your coddling way. I am strengthening, not breaking. We're preparing them for war, Zan." The name was spat from his lips like a foul taste. " Not some dinner party. They're going to watch their comrades fall, and die, violently and commonly. The bonds they form now are useless and dangerous. It gives the enemy an advantage to have a breaking point. If the loss of someone affects you in battle, you are lost yourself. Best to overcome it now, before it's faced for real. No matter the circumstances, failure is not an option." He turned to look down at Zan. "You disagree?"

Rav Bralor looked on from a corner of the room, regarding the two with something of amusement.

The human trainer tapped a thumb to his chin.

"Not entirely. Your reasoning isn't illogical, it's your methoods I find fault with."

"That's obvious. You seem to have no problem with your batch's failure when it occurs. You're either that cocky or woefully mindless."

Zan snorted. "Not really. I simply believe that failure happens. To everyone, at some point. My preference is that mine learn to handle those failures with grace when they do occur, rather than pretending they wont."

"If you allow for failure, it will follow."

"And so it will, even if you dismiss it."

"Perhaps. But it is an error which can be reduced greatly through proper training."

"Proper? That's subjective. According to the training records, we're both doing something right."

"Don't kid yourself, pirate. It's easy to get high scores when you have no standards."

And with that the Trandoshan stormed out, the Mandalorian trainer chuckling in his wake. She paused to give Zan a rap of knuckles to the chest on her way out.

"You're a good man, Zan. But Rardyrth isn't wrong."

"We're both wrong, for different reasons. I'm not ashamed of mine."

Rav tilted her head up to give him an even look. "Remember what you're training them for. I don't agree with Vau often enough, but can see why he does what he does."

"His boys are rough, I'll give him that. Beyond that... he's lucky, we don't share a desk."

Rav snorted. "Wouldn't go there if I were you. You might stand a chance against Vau alone...I'll give YOU that. But you're not one of us, Zan. You're aruetii, and every Mandalorian, fans of Vau or not, would have his back."

"I figured. Band of brambling scourge, you lot." He grinned at her.

"Says the pirate-turned-bounty hunter with a questionable stake and leverage in all this. A lot of discussion about you in our ranks, and not much of it good."

"I've never been so popular before. I feel like I should have fliers to pass out or something."

"Mir'osik. Watch yourself."

"Will do, Ma'am." He gave her a playful salute. As she stepped through the doorway he called after her. "Still up for the drinks later? We're having a run with Mr. Smiles tomorrow and I could use it. I promise not to bring Baro."

She laughed. "You can bring him if you like. I just can't guarantee he won't get a good thump or two from someone again."

...

.

The next morning they were woken early, drilled out of bed by Rardryths growl over the ceiling comms, rushing through morning hygiene and the mess, drowsy but spurred with anticipation. Today they were doing another timed live exercise paired with the batches of other trainers. A new program in one of the larger sim rooms.

Before entering they had to suit up in specialized gear, triggered by the interactive environment of the program. It was another course of droids and activated landmines , although made somewhat safer, the environment less damaging than the experimental ones of the past. Casualties, while not generally considered from the perspective of the well-being of the cadets who ran them, had been altered for the sake of preserving numbers. Like their gear, they were valuable for the purpose of their making, and excessive fatalities were a waste in that regard.

28 lingered to one side of the room with 37 and 62, having no preference one way or another of who they were paired with other than each other. Over the last couple years, 62 had become less resistant to the outcast fellowship which 28 and 37 offered, and he generally took up tasks with them if they offered, although he spoke little and avoided physical contact or jostling whenever possible. He still ate and slept alone.

"Hey! It's been a while, you guys." The all looked up to see a group of three cadets approaching, the front one recognizable by the wild gestures of his hands. 28 Heard 62 take a long in-breath, though out of frustration or pleasantry was anyone's guess. "Wanna pair up with us?" Hatch asked. He swung a hand out to indicate the two cadets at his side. "Rush and Nix."

62 shrugged and 37 and 28 gave curt nods. The cadet named Rush tilted his head to the side, eyes on 37. He smiled. "I was hoping we'd meet some place ther than the lab. Good to see you, Ravi."

28 and 62 looked to 37. He had spoken of this cadet and the trainers to them, which admittedly they only half-believed at the time. It had seemed too far-fetched. But they had still honored his request not to let the name he had shared pass their lips, lest Rardyrth hear and take it away. It was strange to hear the name spoken aloud now, and without fear by the speaker. 28 considered how that must feel, to have a name, and have it used. He felt pride and warmth for his friend and gave 37 a clasp on the shoulder as they made their way to their position on the course, the layers falling into place around them.

First the sky later, dull and grey, hazy with smoke and clouds, the sun a dim glow of rings behind. Then the surrounding layer of the base background. Cracked buildings and rubble, shattered windows and speeders licked with flames on the burnt and cratered ground fizzling into focus beneath their feet.

Nix tapped the hologrid projection from his gauntlet to life. "Alright, we've got to make it across the courtyard and down the street to a building where some civvies are holed up. They need supplies and we're delivering."

Rush was going over schematics on his HUD. "Ground's riddled with mines triggered to blow. Not enough to do damage, but still enough to hurt. Tap one and you'll have a tumble. Treatment is monitored and timed, as usual." He looked to the others. "Any of you guys a medic? I'm cross training, but pretty pitiful."

"I am," 28 admitted "Though I'm not the pick of the litter."

37 gave him a flick to the helmet. "He's lying. He's tops." 28 looked back to him with a defeated expression, disbelief sagging his shoulders.

Hatch gave him a grin. "We're good to go, then. Can't speak for your lads, but we'll try not to make your life hard, vod. No guarantees, though."

"Who's on point? No preference here." Nix looked to the others, eager to get started.

"I'll take it," 62 volunteered. 28 noticed he usually did. Not from preference of leadership role, but due to the belief that he'd inevitably trigger something and through doing so, warn those behind. Like 37, he had little fear of anything happening to himself, but much of not being able to prevent it from occurring to others. 28 preferred bringing up the rear, being able to see and keep tabs of all of his brothers before him. His HUD provided location blips and statuses, but he really preferred the confirmation of it with his own eyes.

They positioned themselves in a manner preemptive to beginning, a v-formation with half coverage behind wreckage of an old taxi. 62 gave a back look, asking readiness and they all nodded in unison. He raised his decee and gave his gauntlet a tap, activating the course in real time.

The sound of the burning city hit him fierce and loud, the crackles of fires and far off blaster shots screaming smoke. Shattered glass cracked splintering grit beneath their boots as they advanced, stepping carefully amid the ruined street. A shot rang out from one of the windows above them, aimed at 37, but he managed to duck it and Hatch took out the shooter with a shot of his own. 62 leapt over an overturned cafe table and they followed, close but spaced to prevent bunching which would make them easier targets to an enemy. They found another marginal cover in a downed vending cart and fanned out against it, backs to the painted surface.

62 raised a hand and made gestures for them to split, three to each side, to cross the street.

"Step carefully. Can't tell what's street and what's not in this mess. If it looks weird, have a hop."

"Copy that."

They began picking their way across, helmets bobbing from the dipping of eyes between street and the surrounding buildings. They were halfway there when a scream came from behind, shrill and high, spilling from the doorway of one of the buildings. They all spun in unison, blasters raised and trained on the figure coming at them.

But it was a civilian, dress singed and torn and ragged in the wind, hair dark and matted. She sprinted to Nix, who lowered his weapon to reach out to her. "Ma'am, are you injured?" Once he had placed a hand on her arm, she fought his grip, wild with fright, but he held on to her, following protocol. "Ma'am. Do you have any injuries? Is there anyone with you?" He motioned to 28 with the arm holding the blaster, the other wrapped around her shoulders trying to maintain a one-handed grip. 28 was already picking his way over as the others formed a defensive circle around them.

He was almost there when the woman started screaming "They're coming, they're coming!" She pointed a thin arm at the building she had run from and tried to wrench herself free of Nix's grasp again as a shot rang out. It took up a chunk of the permacrete at their feet. A volley of fire was unleashed from the others as droids spilled out onto the street. Two, then three, four.

"Nix! Get her to cover. Get to the building with the others if you can." 62 called out between shots. The others took up positions of cover fire, not giving the droids an inch. Nix backed away, firing as he pulled the woman with him.

More droids broke the glass of upper windows in the building and began firing from above. 37 took one out with a lucky shot, but the other dodged Rush's blast and returned a shot which activated a mine by him. He was flipped heels over head by the blast and landed with a loud clack on his back. He lay there winded for a minute while 28 fought his way over.

"Ow." Rush finally coughed out as 28 knelt beside him. 28 pulled off his helmet to check for head trauma before pulling out his scanner. Rush gave him an embarrassed and apologetic smile "Sorry, Doc. Really didn't mean to be the one to put you to work.''

28 was scrambling through his med-pack, stripping the contents in a flurry.

"I...won't...I won't let you die." 28 promised, voice cracking. He maintained pressure on the base of Rush's skull where the scanner said blood-flow needed to be stopped.

Rush looked up at the medic in surprise at the tremor in his brother's words, eyes making a pass. He took in the pale face and dangerous focus of the cadet's gaze, seeing too much, or not nearly enough , the too-tight grip on the scanner. The fear on the face as the readings were processed.

He put a hand to the other cadet's face and tapped his forehead.

28 blinked, seeming to snap out of a daze. He looked down at Rush in confusion.

"Hey." Rush said. "I'm fine. It's just a sim, the readings you're getting are fake. They're from the suit, not me. I guarantee the only thing I've got wrong with me right now is a smarting backside."

He gave 28 a grin of reassurance, but it didn't seem to be quite enough to reach the other cadet for more than a passing moment. 28 shook his head, slipping back to that blank mask and distant eyes. He was applying a coagulant, and pressing and palpating and checking, fingers flitting from scanned injury to injury, assessing, patching, wrapping. As shaky as his words were, the cadets hands were stead and true and the fastest and lightest Rush had ever felt. And he'd had the benefit of many touches, cadet, trainer, and skilled kaminoan medical techs alike. He remained silent, but watched with amazement as 28 worked on him.

The minutes passed and the firefight was a humming metallic and smoke-pitched beat-song echoing in their helmets with their own breaths. 37 was tackling the droids head on, dipping in and out of cover and peppering them with blasts they couldn't counteract. 62 had reached the building where they exited and was catching a good many of them with crossfire as they stepped out. Hatch was taking out any that dared show a glint of themselves in the windows. Nix had made it to the building with the civilians and dropped off his pack of supplies and the woman and was heading back.

The last of the droids fell and the others gathered around the downed cadet and medic just as 28 finished his work.

He sat there, frozen, hands hovering inches above Rush's chest, eyes wide, knowing he'd done all that he could do. There was nothing else he could do. That the timer would sound any minute. That the sim was over, that he'd somehow messed up, that he'd failed.

But it didn't. He blinked.

Rush was looking at him weird. But he was alive.

"Let's get going." 62 said, peering at 28 for a moment before turning his eyes to the building they needed to get to. 37 grasped his friend's arm and pulled him to his feet and the medic blinked up into his helmet, confused.

He'd...actually saved someone? It had to be a trick. He hadn't succeeded in years. He'd lost track of the times he'd lost 62 or 37 and the rest of his training batch in sims over the years. So many times he'd lain awake and clung desperately to the true and breathing 37, needing to feel that he was real, and alive against him to sleep.

He looked at Rush like he was an apparition.

"Readings say you need carried, vod." Hatch grinned down at Rush, who had propped himself up on his elbows, and was staring back at 28. He glanced up at Hatch when he spoke, then looked around.

"Am I really the only one who triggered a mine?" Receiving confirmation with his eyes, he hung his head dramatically and sighed. He raised his arms for Hatch to grab and hoist him across his shoulders. Draped there, he let himself grow slack and lamented. "The dignity is gone, never to return."

They made their way to the building together. A few quick skirmishes with droids along the way, but they made it together, and within time. There were no other injuries besides Rush.

As they were stripping off the gear to pass onto the next round of cadets after the sim, Rush made a point of doing so beside 28. As they undressed he spoke, loud enough for 28 to hear and no one else.

"I didn't know it was you when we started."

"Me?" 28 asked, confused.

"Zan was talking about you. About...how your trainer always rigged your sims so you'd fail."

28 snorted. "There's no way he could've rigged every single one."

"He did. You have proof of it."

"What proof?"

"That when you treat a patient with the odds stacked against you, but in a FAIR sim, you succeed."

28 shook his head. "No. I just...got lucky."

Rush paused undressing to give him a long look before continuing. He gave a shrug and a grin.

"Think what you like, then. I'm telling you, you're something special and some day," he gave 28 a bop on the head with a boot as he walked away "You're going to help a lot of people."

...

.

.

Cozzizzie and Captain Reb: Thanks you guys for your reviews! We do need to have an adopt a clone day!Or... maybe an adopt a clone story challenge- you get to kidnap one for a day, and the day is yours. Where do you go and what do you do? ;)

Hey! I threw in some Mando'a (And Rav, because she's awesome!)

Mir'osik- "dung for brains"

Aruetii- Outsider


	5. Chapter 5

~Tales of Kamino Chapter 5~

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.

...

"Eesh. Simming a vacation on Hoth, Senim? It's downright chilly in here."

Senim Te spared an amused glance at the trainer who had just stepped into the lab before letting his attention fall again to the cadet who sat before him on the exam table. He went back to applying the small sensors to the boy's chest, checking proper connection and placement for a second time. He wanted to be assured of accuracy and was silently hoping the readings would prove helpful this time around. Some valid discrepancy which would give him something tangible to work with.

The cadet shifted a little as he did so, though whether from the doctor's pressing, or a reaction to the man who had just entered, Senim was unsure.

"The samples in this room require the low temperature." The kaminoan spoke at last. The room's climate didn't bother him in the least, actually he found it refreshing. The chill of the sea was the natural preference of his kind.

But he was quite aware that it was low for the human species, the evidence of it seen and felt in his patient sitting before him. The cadet had been shivering for most of the duration of the tests, though he was trying his best to suppress it. "Almost done, " Senim offered in sympathetic reassurance with a pat to the bare chest, the skin there as hot beneath his fingers and he imagined his touch was icy in comparison. But the cadet gave no reaction to it, merely nodded, his attention on the newcomer.

After a last check on the leads, running fingers nearly as slim as the connection wires themselves between the sensors, he rose to check the monitors across the room.

From out of the corner of his eyes, he watched the interaction of the two others in the room with interest. The cadet had straightened painfully at the man's approach and gave a quick salute, his gaze dropping resolutely to the floor and remaining there afterwards. It was an odd gesture for 62, whose stare was normally direct and laced with an edge of defiance. Just then he looked almost ashamed, as though being seen that way by the trainer was something of an immense embarrassment for him. The man was obviously someone the cadet respected, something curious to Senim as the man didn't appear to recognize the boy beyond what he was.

For his part, Zan seemed oblivious to all of it, merely bending to pluck 62's discarded tunic from the table and draping it around the cadet's shoulders before taking a seat cross-legged on the exam table beside him. All of it done with the habitual ease of one who had a hundred such youths of his own and did those kinds of things often. But it was obviously foreign to 62, who had tensed visibly at the unexpected touch and close proximity. Yet, after a minute he had slowly relaxed and now sat casting flickering looks between the trainer and the floor.

Senim Te finished transcribing the recordings from the monitor and returned to the table to remove the sensors. Afterwards 62 hopped off the table and began replacing his tunic with an odd mixture of reluctance and haste. Eager to go, but also to stay it seemed. He took the chart that Senim Te held out to him, eyes still on the floor.

"All clear." Senim admitted, the empty readings made worse with 62's visible wince. But the cadet gave a nod and lifted his eyes with a brief and sincere look of gratitude to the kaminoan even so. "You may head back now, 62."

"Yes, sir." The cadet gave them both a hasty salute, which Zan returned with a tap of fingers to his brow and a smile. He stared after the cadet for a while once he'd gone, eyebrows raised before turning to Senim Te.

"62? That's the cadet who gave Hatch a good smack back then." He chuckled at the memory then thumbed in the direction of the door. "What's wrong with him? "

"Nothing, by my judgment. Just the victim of bad luck."

"Bad...? Oh. You mean Rardyrth...Poor kid." He said in genuine sympathy, looking to the door once more before returning his attention fully to Senim Te. "You had some news about Rush?"

Senim Te gave a curt nod, his eyes also slipping to the door although for a different reason, subconciously confirming that it was closed before speaking. The conversation was about to get dangerously private and he didn't want to take the chance of being overheard. When he looked back at Zan his eyes must have revealed as much because the trainer furrowed his brows.

"I have discovered an anomoly in Rush that I believe may be the cause of his Seizures."

"An anomoly? "

"Something inconsistent with my knowledge of human anatomy."

"Something you haven't been able to detect before, after all this time?" Zan sat upright, legs uncrossing before being swung over the side of the table.

"Yes. Until now I had never performed a scan on this level. It was undetectable in others."

Zan blinked at that. "Well, what is it? Can it be fixed? "

"I am uncertain. It appears to be organic, though not naturally occurring. I have no idea as to its function. Only that it seems linked to Rush's episodes. I imagine it is the direct cause of them, actually. "

"Is it...removable? "

"Certainly. But I'm not sure what effect that would have. It's possible it may remove the inclination for seizures, but at what cost I'm not sure. Having never seen something like this before, I'm not positive what effect removing it might have."

Zan thought for a moment, fingers to his chin. "And Rush is the only one you've noticed this in."

"Yes, but I have never performed a scan of this nature on another cadet. It may be something they all posess, although I was not made aware of it, or its function."

"What does Nala Se recommend? "

"She is unaware that I have preformed the scan, so has no opinion on it. She strictly forbade the procedure."

The words hung heavy between them. Suspicious. Nala Se was often Senim's partner, had been in this particular endeavor for years. That he would do such a thing behind her back irked Zan more than a little, Senim could see.

"Why? "

"The high level scan is very risky. She would not authorize it. I proceeded because it was the only option left unexplored and I believed the scan would reveal something worth the risk."

"I wasn't informed of any of it. Why didn't you tell me before? "

"It was Rush's request that I did not. He felt you would not allow it."

Zan stared at him for a minute, long and analyzing before finally letting out a captive breath and pressing fingers to his eyes. "So, what are our options? "

"We can do nothing, which leaves the risk of future seizures... or we can remove it. "

"And the risks of that? "

"Possible loss of brain function, or death. There is no way of knowing without the knowledge of what the mass is for. " He was silent for a while, allowing it to sink in, before giving the man a knowing look. "You do not wish to take that risk with Rush, am I correct? "

"No. Not unless. ...there's no other way."

Senim had anticipated that answer and responded accordingly."There may be a way of determining the mass's function with no risk to Rush."

"How?"

The doctor's pin-pointed eyes drifted to the door and back. "If the mass is present in other cadets, which I have come to believe strongly due to my colleague's suspicious behavior, then we can remove it from another and see what happens."

"Suspicious behavior? And...what? " Zan looked up at him in disbelief.

Senim Te continued cautiously, eyes back on the door, arms loose at his sides though his fingers clenched to fists as his mind raced with his words from within.

"As I said. This was the only unexplored option and highly conductive to bringing an answer. I cannot understand why Nala Se would oppose it so strongly. She wouldn't consider it under any means. Highly unusual and suspicious. I have never known her to refuse to push forward for the sake of medical progress." He looked down at Zan intently. "For this reason I have the instinct to keep it hidden from her. And would ask you and Rush to do the same. Rush has agreed to this."

Zan was tapping his chin in thought, looking at Senim but not quite seeing. A feeling of unease lingered. "And what you said after. About using another cadet?"

It felt like there was a warning there to Senim, an edge in that question.

"Yes. That appears necessary, given the situation. We can perform the scan and procedure on 62, in Rush's stead. It will give us the knowledge we seek without endangering him."

Zan lifted his head from his hands to look at Senim Te for a long time. When he spoke his voice was tight and he shook his head.

"You want to...I'm sorry. I'm really confused. I thought I was talking to Senim, but now I'm convinced he's switched bodies with Lama Su." There was an anger there that didn't surprise Senim in the slightest. It was an anticipated reaction as well.

He let out a breath of his own and shook his head slowly, remorsefully. "You misunderstand my intention. I am fond of 62, but his termination is imminent. I felt strongly that a purposeful death would be kinder than a pointless one, for him. Those are the only choices in my power. "

"What? Why is he set to be terminated? You said there's nothing wrong with him."

"Not by any scanner or test, or my opinion. But his trainer believes there is, and I have been unable to provide a reason why. Ko Sai will not continue to allow for the reported failures he continues to have with no reason to explore or document or correct."

"He fails because Rardyrth makes him! "

"That is my conclusion also. But I cannot continue to clear him indefinitely. Ko Sai has made this clear to both Nala Se and myself. His time is limited." Senim looked to Zan, although he wasn't sure what he sought. Support? Affirmation? Acceptance? "62 is aware of this also."

Zan looked to the door and said nothing.

...

.

"Something's eating at you. What is it?" Baro cast a glance at the man walking beside him as they made their way down the arched chamber, past the sim rooms and into the wing of the apartments. Zan had returned from the lab that morning in a decidedly poor mood and Baro hadn't been able to coax the reason out of him yet.

The dark haired trainer shook his head at the inquiry again, although he gave a small glimpse of this thoughts. "Just...actively supressing the urge to kill someone right now."

"Ah, business as usual then. "

Zan gave a half-hearted snort.

"You sure we should be headed to Fett's then? Guy isn't the best at encouraging warm and fuzzy thoughts."

"He's not a bad guy, Baro. The fact that he doesn't like you doesn't mean much."

"Huh. Love you too."

Zan game him a smile. "You can hang out with Boba while we talk. He's always happy to see you."

The door slid open before Zan had even knocked, Fett must've heard their approach. He gave them a brief once over, his eyes lingering on Baro with a hint of annoyance, before giving a choppy nod and motioning for them to step inside.

Zan followed Fett into the sleeping room off to the side while Baro took a seat on the couch beside Boba. The boy looked up from the holovid he was watching with a scowl and crossed arms.

Baro gave him a grin. "Hey you. It's been a while. Miss me?" He gave the boy a playful poke in the side. Boba said nothing but responded with a deep frown and a dark glare. He scooted as far away from the man as possible before returning to the holovid he was watching, although he kept a suspicious eye on him the entire time.

But Baro simply sat and watched the holovid in silence.

After a few minutes Boba finally began to relax, perhaps deciding Baro wasn't going to do anything. He let out a slow breath through his nose and his grip on the pillow in his lap softened slightly.

It was a mistake and he regretted it immediately.

Baro turned to face him suddenly and Boba recognized the look. He made to jump up but the trainer was too fast and he had leaned over and wrapped him in an exuberant hug before he could escape.

"You're too cute! You look just like mine when they were four, you know that?" He brushed knuckles to Boba's head as he struggled to free himself. "I miss those curls."

"Urg! Let me go you dikut!"

"Not a chance." Baro grinned down at him, ignoring the pummeling to his chest and side of his face as the boy tried to extricate himself. He laughed when Boba landed a solid kick to his stomach. "Hey! You're getting better. A couple years and I might not be able to hug you anymore." He pouted and pulled the boy closer, before a wicked grin crossed his face and he whispered into Boba's ear. "Which means I can't tickle you then anymore either...Better get that in now, eh?"

Boba gave a muffled grunt of indignation from within his arms and increased his flailing.

...

In the bedroom Jango was standing with his hands laced behind his back staring through the viewport which offered a glimpse of the stormy sea outside the complex. The waves tossed thick foam across the glass, silent but furious. The weight of the water below them sent tiny shudders up the rungs of the support beams and vibrated in the alloy of the walls. The hum of the sea. It was a constant and something that one became accustomed to, then craved over time.

Zan looked around the room, waiting for the other man to ignite the conversation. The place was personalized yet neat, as expected. He could see the Mandalorian's trademark armor resting against the wall in a corner. Jetpack disassembled on the desk for cleaning, pieces placed in a systematic manner of taking stock and assembly. Maintenance, or Jango was teaching Boba the how-tos of it. That wouldn't surprise him. He decided the bounty hunter must've wanted him to speak first.

"You wished to discuss something?"

Jango half turned after a minute, expression neutral.

"My...sponsor has an offer for you."

Zan hosted an eyebrow. "Tyranus?"

"You know him?" Jango tilted his head, surprised. Zan shook his head.

"Heard of him. Haven't met him. I've seen a few of his broadcasts."

Jango turned to face him fully now, eyes direct, searching. "And what's your opinion?"

Zan shrugged. "Not of much interest to me."

Jango gave a small smirk. "Galactic dissonance, and you have no interest."

"I'm not interested in picking a side."

"You won't be interested in this offer then."

"Probbaly not."

"Still want to hear it?"

"Sure, why not?"

Jango snorted. "He''s offered you a position in his cause. A respectable position. High paying."

"Yep. No thanks." Zan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "Hey, It's been a while since our kids played, you up for a play date?"

Jango matched his posture, arms crossed although he remained standing. "You sure?"

"Yeah, yours are a bit bigger, but mine have spunk. Also, they'd be thrilled at learning some of those super secret ARC trooper techniques. Gotta admit, you got a flashy gig. Those pauldron and Kamas..."

"About the offer, Zan. It's a good one." The older man had a strange look in his eyes, not quite pleading, but something along that path. There was more behind the offer then met the eyes.

"Doesn't tickle my fancy." Zan was admittedly suspicious. "Did you take it?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Doesn't matter to me none, Jango. Just curious." He tilted his head to study the ceiling. He knew there was no persuasion to be had on either side. "Creds aren't worth allegiance to anyone. " He returned his focus to the Jango. "You're getting paid to train an army for the republic by a man who publicly opposes it. He's got a dark game going on. Think on that, and be careful there, my friend."

"Since when are we friends?" Jango asked with a tinge of amusement.

"We're not? I wrote you in my address book and everything. I was even going to compliment you on your tunic. I was just thinking it, but hadn't said it yet... Nice tunic."

Jango gave a brief smile before his face grew grim. The mask of stone he often wore as trainer. His voice was low and sharp, serious. "When your home world secceeds from the Republic, and we both know it's on that path Zan, which side will you choose? When all these boys put boots on your planet for the republic, as you've taught them to... whose side will you take? Think on that."

.

...

Cozzizzie: That sounds perfect. Chocolate...Mmm! Haha. If there isn't something like that, there should be! ;)


	6. Chapter 6

~Tales of Kamino Chapter 6~

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.

...

They had been running drills for days, breaking only to eat and sleep, and it was starting to show. Their bodies edgy and slowing with weariness, enthusiasm pressed low and thin.

They had no idea of the cause of it, only the vague notion that something brewed steeply between their trainers and this was the means of their hashing it out. Something had taken place, a lacy cracking of the facade which had been strung between Rardyrth and Zan for years, the unveiling of a true and deep rivalry brought to a head by some indecipherable disagreement. Days of running themselves ragged and hot and high. Tall emotions and bright sharp sparks between them, fizzling out in the evenings only to return fresh and blazing the next morning.

There had been none of the usual jokes or grins or snark from Zan towards Rardryth during this time. Only cold, calculating disapproval and measuring.

62 had never seen the dark-haired trainer like this. Distinctly hard and distant with Rardyrth, and though not unfriendly to him and his brothers, not really possessed of the usual light or mischief in their presence either.

The cadet wasn't aware of what exactly had passed between them, what information or insult, only that it was evident and they were all at the brink of exhaustion now and that it would probably end badly. It seemed the non-stop sims and drills, although co-performed non-competitively were driven by the need to prove something, though he knew not what or why.

He knew only that he was doing ok.

Better than ok. He was doing well. It had been two full days lacking completely in accidents or screw-ups or failures. There was a small flame within him that he let burn even though he knew it safer and kinder to snuff. Maybe he was getting better. Maybe he wasn't cursed. His mind whispered the scathing reprimand, assured that he knew it to be false, but it was a nice thought, and he let it flicker as they took up position for the next drill.

He caught the dark stare of Rardyrth watching from above, the unspoken words between them not needing to be said in any way beyond that one simple and telling look.

You will fail. You always fail. You always will.

62 threw his gaze to the floor and stoked the heat within. The ire towards his trainer and the flames of recent success were equally seductive and soothing, evenly distracting. He savored them for a moment before allowing them to die out. Other cadets took up positions around where he knelt, and he turned focus to the objective. The sim fell in layers around them, breathing holographic life and structure to the space.

It was a deck-drill. Securing ships to the deck for flight safety. The ships fizzled to life within the large hanger, the walls falling like pixelated water from the ceiling and coming together in an overlayed puddle beneath their feet. The transparent layers melded and solidified. They now knelt on the slick alloyed tiles of the flight deck amid the cable reels.

The cables were real.

Aside from the trainer and his brothers, they were the only things that were in that large room, and the only things he wished weren''t.

He could handle the backsplash of the frantic firefight beyond the deck's roof viewports. The bright splash of sparks of a downed ship colliding with theirs, the deep rumble of the impact and the jagged clawing of it across the outside of the ship. He could stomach the flashing emergency lights and the blaring warning siren without a hitch to his breath.

But the cables were dark snakes in his hands, venomous and pain, biting skin and burning down to bone. He shuddered as he grabbed hold of one and prepared to latch it down, remembering weeks of searing and weeping palms and fingers during recovery from a mishap when he was six.

Baro, who was walking among the cadets, checking and placing them in preparation to begin the sim, stopped close and lingered. With eyes trained by eight years experiences pinpointing minute differences or irregularities, honed in on and picked up on 62's hesitation. He leaned over, hands on his knees.

"Not a fan of cables?"

"No, sir..." 62 could see the edge of the trainer's brown hair out of the corner of his eyes, heard the voice at his shoulder and his cheeks flushed with discomfort at the close scrutiny. He looked up to see the trainer blinking at him, as though waiting for him to explain further, and he hesitated, knowing he had to answer but afraid to admit the depth of his fear, to confess weakness.

He wished the man hadn't taken any notice of him. Why did he have to know? 62 didn't want him to. If the trainer knew, then he couldn't continue the pretense that he wasn't a failure.

But there was no disgust or disappointment or anger in the wide green eyes, just honest curiosity.

"Bad experience. Sir," 62 admitted quietly.

He expected some sort of chastisement, or a mocking chuckle, but the man just gave a nod and straightened to let his eyes pan the course.

"No worries. I won't let anything happen to you."

He said it with his back to 62, eyes elsewhere, signalling a cadet across the space to position himself. A passing comment, but the offering of it both surprised and embarrassed 62. He wasn't worthy of that statement, regardless if he actually meant it or not.

"Alright, boys. Let's get this done. Twenty-second time running this for me today. I can do it with my eyes closed..." he paused to give them all a look, "...don't try that." There were a few titters from his batch. "Start in ten." There was a collective squeak of boots and the clack of armor as they shifted, hunkering down, ready to spring to action. Baro remained a few footsteps from 62, though whether from maintaining his promise or due to the distraction of lighting up a cigarette and taking a deep swig of the smoke wasn't clear. But he was there, and it began.

62 heard the shouts of his brothers to one another, drained but pressing on as they dove into the business of unwinding, catching, tossing, lacing the cables between the ships and the deck with the ease of those who shared the same body and thoughts. Despite training differences, in the last couple frenzied and heated days they had formed a congruency which shone even through the depths of their weariness. The cables danced into place, strung like sinewy webs across the floor.

So far the cables were obeying his hands and latching easily enough. He pulled a third one taut and looped it to the tie down, securing it with fingers growing stronger and steadier as confidence welled up within his chest. Above him the trainer saw and gave a nod of approval, shadowing 62's path on the flight deck, eyes swiveling between him and the others.

At the second to last hook there was a tie up. 62 waited for the next cable to be thrown to him, but it took longer than normal and he looked up to see a cadet straining with the end of it at the spool. He rose to go and help, but at last it came free and the cable was tossed to him. The tension was high because the cable hadn't been pulled free of the spool quite long enough and 62 had to stretch it a bit. He checked the tension with a gauge like he'd been taught and it still measured in safe parameters, so he fastened it, although it was a bit of a struggle for him.

He moved on to the last latch when Rardyrth's voice boomed over his internal com.

"Secure that tie again, cadet."

62 looked back to the other cable, then up at Rardyrth in the view port above.

"It's secure, sir. Normal parameters."

"If that's true, only barely. I can see how poorly it's done from here. Secure it again!" Baro was looking between 62 and the viewport, not having heard the chatter because he was without a helmet, but deducing something was up.

"Yes sir." 62 walked back over to the second to last cable. Baro was standing beside it and he tilted his head as 62 approached.

"Did Ol' Awfulsauce tell you to redo it? It's fine."

62 was fighting the twinge of his lips at the name that had been given to Rardyrth, when the trainer heard something.

It was indistinguishable to 62 from where he stood above the sounds and clamor around them, the shouting and hissing and humming of cables in the air and fastened to the deck. But Baro had heard something and spun around, eyes on the latch securing the cable.

62 took a step closer and then he heard it, though it didn't register in time.

He heard splintering and then a metallic crack and saw the shudder of the last grips of tension before the latch on the deck pulled free, the support severing with a loud snap. The cable bucked and spun hot with wild unraveling as the latch was catapulted. The cable snaked through the air like a silver liquid-blurred thread wild and wind-sharp, singing like a blade.

There was a sudden wet snap of it connecting with something.

Someone.

And then a hot spray of red across 62's face and chest. He stood motionless and eyes wide as it ran down his cheek and chest plate in thin rivulets. The garnet lines striping the white armor of his front beneath.

But the armor was intact, and it was merely a splash against his body. The blood wasn't his. It took him long seconds to recognize that. He looked up with the horror and fascination of one who has cheated death yet doesn't quite believe it, eyes on the one who had spared him from it.

Baro had stepped in front, and now stood with the cable snagged in his right hand, caught against a bare palm and the serrated edge of vibroblade he held in his left. The rest of the line now lay slack in a coiled heap across the floor, motionless, harmless. But the initial snap of it had sliced a sharp swift arc as it broke free, a whistling wet snap across his chest before he had caught it in his grip. Blood blossomed along the line where it had struck, from hip to shoulder, and a trickle of it seeped off the contour of his armor and made a small puddle on the floor.

Baro blinked down at it, releasing his grip and resheathing the gauntlet blade so that it fell with a metallic whine to the floor. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled as he regarded himself, an eyebrow lifting.

Blood was leaking from between the fingers that balanced the cigarette, the effect of having caught the cable's rebound against his bare palm.

"Huh. Wasn't expecting that. Good thing I didn't have my eyes closed."

He chuckled to himself and returned the cigarette to his mouth and cast a look over his shoulder.

The cadets were in various states of shock around him, some had dropped or fell back on their hands. 62 was still frozen in place, flecked red where he stood.

Aside from looking a little shaken they were all unharmed.

"You ok?" Baro asked of 62, lips moving around the cigarette. "Hopefully that's mine." He looked the cadet up and down with a squint before pressing a hand to the chest plate and giving a light swipe with his unbloodied hand. The unmarked white shone from beneath and he seemed satisfied, crossing his arms and gazing at the coil on the floor.

62 stared at the seeping wound on the trainer's chest.

"Baro!" Zan had appeared on the course and sprinted across as it faded back to the blank room, the sim cut off. He spun the other trainer with a hand on his shoulder, pressing a hand and sliding a path across the other man's chest as Baro had done to 62. It came away slick and red. He gave a tug at the edge of Baro's armor, prying it from his shoulder to slip fingers underneath and against skin to gauge depth of the wound. "How deep?"

Baro winced at the probing but shook his head, removing the cigarette and exhaling smoke to speak.

"It's fine. Barely got through beyond my armor. Bleeds and stings like a slagging papercut, though." He looked down at himself. "It does look nasty, doesn't it? Can I keep smoking?"

"Idiot. If you didn't have armor on that would've sliced you in two."

"I'm glad I listened to you and dressed properly, dad."

Zan smacked him upside the head. "Get to medical."

Baro conceded and left while Zan remained. His eyes passed over 62 and the others, taking them all in, sweeping checks. He'd seen that they were fine from the viewing port, but the confirmation of his own eyes superceded that, always. He gave a long sigh and closed his eyes for a moment before reopening them. His gaze fell on 62 and lingered on his face, a strange expression passing over his own, a mixture of exhaustion and apology. He stepped astride with the cadet and placed a hand on his shoulder as he spoke to the others behind.

"Training's over for today, you lot." He addressed them all, regardless of them being his batch or not. " Get washed and fed and hit the racks." They all complied.

62 remained, still in his grasp, unsure if the order included him or not. He wasn't certain if the trainer's hand on his shoulder was one of support, or anger. The latter would've been wholly justified, given that he'd almost cost the man his comrade in arms.

The evidence of that was smeared across his chest and speckled his face. He looked up to Zan with an expression of respect and submission and compliance. Eyes even and honest. He'd gladly accept whatever punishment the man favored for him, whatever rebuke he offered from his lips.

But Zan merely stared at him, studying, offered at last only a small smile, tired and sad, and a shake of his head, pressing fingers to his eyes. "..If Baro hadn't been there..."

If Baro hadn't been there, he wouldn't have gotten hurt.

That was obvious, but it didn't seem to be what the man was implying. The way he had said it, it was like he was...grateful. Grateful Baro had been there. Had taken the blow in his stead.

62 couldn't make sense of it. He stared up at the trainer with true puzzlement.

Zan shook his head again and gave 62's shoulder a squeeze then withdrew his hand to give a quick ruffle of the cadet's hair before turning and stepping away. He walked past Rardyrth who stood observing a few feet away , arms crossed and unfathomable expression, without so much as a word or look.

62 left beneath the Trandoshan's gaze, his own eyes on the floor, catching the path of red drops which belonged to the trainer, across it.

Baro's blood. On the floor, and on his front.

It shouldve been his.

...

.

.

Later that night 62 slipped from his bunk, head clustered and loud but feet silent against the rungs of the ladder as he climbed down. He paused when he hit the floor. One foot lingering on the ladder and he closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead against the cool surface. When he reopened them he regarded 28's bunk below in the darkness for a moment.

There were two forms there beneath the blanket, as 62 had suspected there would be. He'd heard and felt the movements as he lay awake earlier. 37 clamboring in to sleep beside 28 as he did sometimes, after a particularly rough day. He wasn't sure if it was a placating measure done on 37's part for 28, as it sometimes seemed, or if the craving of company at night was a mutual thing..

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence. There were others among their batch who did the same. Their bunks and the hours of their sleep were the only place and time in their lives which were completely their own. Unwatched, unregulated, unjudged. Some trainers moderated even then. Luckily it had never been Rardyrth's habit to do so. A small kindness they were afforded for whatever reason. But they took advantage of it, and laid claim to it as their own. Using it as an opportunity as a remind themselves of their humanity.

During drills and sims there was no time for that. But at night, in the stillness and darkness , they were human. Whispered murmurs and hushed laughter, muffled sobs. Ruffling sheets and sleep breaths and heartbeats. The reassurance of a friend warm and still alive beside you, fully aware that might not be the case the next night, assured it wouldn't be the case for very long.

It was something unspoken, but it was always on their minds.

What would the next day bring?

By all accounts today had been a good one.

No one had been injured aside from the trainer that day, and there had been no recourse at the sudden and short end.

But they so easily could have been. Badly. The motion of the cable could easily have dismembered or decapitated. He knew.

He knew. He always knew.

And he knew whose fault it was.

The image of Rardyrth seared in his mind, coupled with a heat in his chest that boiled rage and hate.

He'd anticipated it. The retaliation from Rarydyrth after several days worth of exercises with no incidents. After he had performed well for the other trainers, when he so often did poorly for his own.

It was revenge on the Trandoshan's part. A reminder of who he was, and who he'd remain.

The cable had been meant for him. Rardyrth had known, Had told him to go back. Had wanted him to be there when it snapped. He didn't know how Rardyrth had done it, only that he had.

It was obvious now that Rardyrth had grown weary of playing games, it had become more obvious as time passed, and that day it had become clear. Now he wanted to end it. He wanted 62 dead.

Only Baro stepping in front had prevented that. And he'd nearly paid the ultimate price for that sentiment.

62 couldn't let that happen again to anyone else. He wouldn't.

Rardyrth wanted him dead, and he no longer had any opposition to it. But he did have the preference to not go out quietly, restrained on an exam table, beneath cold fingers and eyes and injected death.

He was going to give Rardyrth the opportunity himself. Alone and in the still dark of the night. Away from his brothers and anyone else who might get in the way. He had no doubts the trainer would draw amusement from it, would ultimately overpower him. Would kill him. He knew the trainer was merely waiting for a legitimate reason. Perhaps he had been all along. 62 didn't much care. As long as it was well and truly over by morning.

He cast one last look at the sleeping 37 and 28, tangled up with each other and snoring, blanket askew. He shook his head with a faint smile and straightened it. Then he gave the others one last look, before he slipped from the room and barefoot into the dark corridor, passing beneath the faint red streaks of night-lighting to where Rardyrth slept.

...

Thank you for your reviews, everyone :)

LongLiveTheClones: I did a double take when I saw the emails for your reviews. Really honored! I've enjoyed your stories very much!

Cozzizzie: I got your review, and I'm not sure why it's not showing. Politics...Not my strong point, but I'm trying, ha! I'm still undecided how Jango and Zan will part from this. Friends or enemies. But their relationship will make a little more sense when Zan's reason for being there comes up.

TGP: Your review isn't showing either :p. Yep! So close, but no cigar. Yet. That knowledge will be very important later on in TOC when they show up.


	7. Chapter 7

~Tales of Kamino chapter 7~

...

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"He's gone."

37 lifted his head from the pillow in a sleep daze, squinting around for the owner of the soft and familiar voice which had pulled him from darkness of dreams and into the too bright reality, even ghosted as it still seemed from behind half closed lids. His eyes finally landed on 28, his outline faintly visible in the splash of light from the door. He was looking at him from beside the bed, a foot on the rung the bunk's ladder, hands gripping the rails.

37 wiped a hand across his face, snagging drool from his cheek and he made a grimace.

"He's not in his bed. But he wouldn't be anywhere else. He never sneaks out or sleeps anywhere different..."

37 was only half-listening, lifting and making to wipe his face with the pillow, only to find it covered as well. "Bleck."

"We didn't hear anything. It couldn't have been Rardyrth. We would've heard."

37 flipped the pillow over, squinted at it and shrugged, settling back down to return to sleep.

"Ravi!"

That got his attention. His head jerked back up and he blinked at 28, whose eyes were wide and shining with obvious distress.

"Rardyrth took 62."

"What? "

"He's gone."

37 just stared at him for a moment before realization struck and he rolled off the bunk and put a foot on the ladder. 28 stepped out of the way, shaking his head as the other cadet peered over the edge of the bunk and hopped down, turning a very surprised gaze on him. "He's not in the fresher? "

28 shook his head, attention slipping to the door of the hallway and the faint glow of red lighting that shone in through it and beyond. 37 followed the path of his friend's eyes and pulled in a breath. He stood frozen for a moment, foot still on the ladder as though considering what their options were, what choice they had in the middle of the night and in opposition of the only person they posessed any right to seek guidance or aid from.

Finally he cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the sleeping others, then hopped down and without a word took off down the hall, and 28 followed.

..

Senim Te was returning some samples to their cryo tubes at his desk when the two cadets burst in and he stood so quickly his chair fell back to the floor with a clatter and the neat stack of holopads at his elbow toppled. Across the room Nala Se had swiveled her head in surprise, arm hovering mid gesture.

"Cadets? What is the meaning of this?" He gave them a stern glance, eyes dipping between them and the door. They were no longer young enough to be sneaking out of their barracks at night without harsh consequence from him, whether he was possessed of affection or familiarity for them or not. He hoped they had a good reason.

They had ignored the question at first, eyes panning the room frantically, searching. Not finding what they sough they gave their attention to him and made a gesture of apology.

"Doctor! We...I mean, sir. Is...was...62 here?" 28 looked between the two kaminoans as though the implications of his question were almost too terrible to vocalize beyond those words.

Senim te peered down at them, head tilting to the side atop the thin neck in confusion. He righted the chair and then bent to collect the holopads.

"62? I have not seen him. At this hour he would be in his bunk, I should think."

28 shook his head woefully.

"He's not there. It must've been...him." He glanced at 37 in despair.

"Him?" Nala Se asked, rising and approaching, fingertips steepled before her.

"Rardyrth. He's taken him to be terminated."

Senim's eyes drifted to his companion in question.

But she looked equally perplexed. "I was not informed."

37's face brewed with heat, and then, fear. He passed eyes between them both, desperate.

"Rardyrth's taken him. We know it. Please..."he spoke as though certain he wasn't possessed of any place to ask such a thing, but unwilling to not be heard. "Please save him."

The two doctors looked at him, unspeaking.

The stare the cadets gave wasn't one they hadn't seen before, but rather one they had witnessed many times over the years in which the halls echoed with the footfalls of the beings before them. Which made it all the more powerful. It really was heartbreaking, Senim thought, the power these children always believed him to have. How many of them had pleaded in this manner, and for a similar purpose, over the years? Some as young as these two had been when they'd first met.

He had thought with time he would acquire some ability or rank which would give him that benefit, which would permit him to grant that salvation, but it had never come. He had no more power now than he did then.

At his side Nala Se twitched, though due to what reason Senim wasn't sure. Compassion perhaps. It was hard to tell with her. Some days she seemed filled with nothing else, and others she was stonily the silence to those pleading as these now did, with their eyes just as glossed and wide and scared. They hardly ever dared speak their case, even though they always asked with their eyes.

But even with her specialties and status, she could no more dismiss a direct order from Ko Sai or Lama Su than he.

Senim shook his head with honest remorse at the two before him. "I do not posess the power to do so if what you say is true. I assure you we have doen all in our power to keep him at your side until now."

28 made a half choked sound, eyes slipping to the ground as they often did in distress.

37 glowered. Not at the kaminoans, but past them. Hard on the wall and jaw set. For a second they remained so before softening a little. A small flash of light and hope.

"He does."

"What?"

"Zan. He has the power. He's kept Rush alive when others wouldn't have been able to." He looked up at the doctor, pure belief and hitched breath. "Please take us to him, Sir!" 28 looked much less convinced, but desperate enough to try anything at his side.

Senim blinked for a moment before shaking his head and running a hand over his face. A very human gesture. Probably one he'd picked up from the one they sought.

After a minute he gave a curt nod. It was worth a shot.

...

Zan answered the door looking very much like he had rolled right out of bed and stumbled across the floor to do so. Bleary eyed and mussed hair and sleep clothes.

He blinked at them for a moment in confusion before recognition lit and he understood. Or understood enough. Two cadets, who he recognized as Ravi and the who he guessed was the medic he was atattched to. Two who were always with 62, and now stood at his door without, and with Senim. His eyes widened with the realization and he was very awake.

"Where is he?"

"Rardyrth took him, sir." 37 seemed about to say more, but faltered as though unsure how or what to ask. But he didn't need to say anything else, Zan had already retreated back inside his chamber to grab the scabbard that rested by the door and stepped back out into the hallway with a flick of his fingers between them and the room.

"Keep them here." He told Senim as rapped on the next door down.

After a minute Baro poked a head out and he gave them all a flabbergasted look before his eyes fell on Zan and he blinked. The trainer was turned away from them so they couldnt see his face but whatever Baro saw there spurred him to grab his own weapon and follow without a word and they disappeared down the corridor.

...

Rardyrth heard the clatter of his armor to the floor and jolted upright, springing from the bed and unsheathing the vibroblade from his gauntlet in one smooth motion. He crouched, poised to defend or attack, eyes darting around the room, trying to place order to the chaos of the shadows. It was liquid shapes and outlines, the only light the faint spill from the open door off the main lounge area beyond his bedroom.

At last his eyes fell on the cause of the disturbance and he rose in disbelief.

62 was standing beside the stand where Rardyrth's armor had been placed , and his posturing was evident of his guilt. The trainer knew it was 62 because those were his eyes, both cold and hot, indifference and hate. When his gaze lifted from the floor slowly to fix on the trandoshan they were all of those things, yet without depth.

At first Rardryth merely stood, unmoving and silently trying to put logic to the situation. He couldn't find any, although the eyes which shone in the darkness spoke of a story that would be told that night or not at all.

"What is the meaning of your presence, cadet?"

62 still said nothing, although his eyes arrowed and his hands clenched at his sides.

Rardyrth wasn't posessed of much patience to begin with. He stepped over to the overturned stand and slammed his vibroblade deep into the polished wood of it, then crossed his arms and peered dep into the cadet's face.

"Speak. Or I will make you."

62 didn't even flinch, or move for that matter beyond his eyes, which followed Rardyrth's movement and locked in the stare. He brought his own face inches from the trainer. Eight years of doubled aging and harsh training, and with a height and weight nearing that of his template, the cadet was a decent force to be reckoned with in his own right and he held his ground.

"Do it, then."

Rardyrth saw fire and his strike was lightning across 62's face and there was another crash of his armor as the cadet fell upon it. The boy stared up from atop it all impassively at the person who had taught him everything. Fighting, winning, struggling, losing, pain and loss and hate. He pushed himself up from the floor with his arms as the mark of the blow blossomed across his cheek. His fingers curled around the Trandoshan's fallen sheathed sword which lay on the floor beside him. A gesture not lost on Rardyrth.

"You've wanted me dead for a long time. Let's get to it, then," the boy said as he rose.

And Rardyrth saw that he cadet believed his words, and he withdrew his knife and prepared for the strike.

...

The cadet was crouched in the corner, clutching at what were undoudtedly bruised, if not broken ribs, eyes as narrowed and sharp as the blade he held with his other hand. Still determined to prove some point which eluded Rardyrth. The trainer was by now of the mind that the boy had completely snapped, the crazed eyes and accusations of the last few minutes replaying in his mind as he stared down at 62. The youth wasn't attacking, not quite, but returning blows as good as he got. Rardyrth had realized the mistake of trying to simply beat the cadet to submission long minutes ago, after it proved more difficult and damaging to them both than anticipated.

They both bore the marks of the altercation as the boy wasn't without skill, and given that, disabling him without seriously harming him wasn't easy. Rardyrth began to fear there might only be one outcome to it all, one which he'd perform if necessary, but wasn't eager to.

For all the cadet's current insanity and past failures, he wasn't a bad fighter after all. He had been well trained, and could be useful. Though posessed of no affection for 62 as himself, the trainer balked at the waste of something so potentially useful.

He stepped forward, vibroblade raised for another round, 62 tensing and lifting the blade in his hand as well, when they burst in.

Shadows that slipped in and took up the dance with the sound of a sword unsheathed and knees to the floor. Rardyrth's blade sang with the blow of another against it and he stumbled back from the force of it. He regained himself against the bed and rose to greet with fury the interloper who he knew even without having to see.

"Rardyrth, if you touch that cadet again, you won't be nearly as pretty as you are now. Or in as big of a piece. I assure you." Zan threatened as his eyes slipped to 62 over his shoulder, seeing, rationalizing, analyzing. What he saw appeared to temper his fury slightly, but it still rolled off of him in electric waves and he raised his own blade with intention.

That set Rardyrth's blood boiling and the Trandoshan charged, rationale lost to fury at the sight of the hated competitor who dared to interfere. Again. They had something to settle, and he was very fond of that moment to do so.

62 watched in horror as the two trainers began to hash it out before his eyes. He rose to make an attempt at stopping them, but was prevented from doing so by strong hands on his shoulders which pulled him to his feet and then backwards from the room. The shock prevented resistance, as did the knowledge of who did it, the feel of a bandaged front telling against his back.

The door slid closed at the behest of the trainer's figners, and once they'd retreated a fair distance, 62 was spun and the grip on his shoulders loosened although it remained, making sure he didn't get any ideas. Baro shook his head and frowned down at him.

"Let them have at it for a bit. Let's get a look at you." He seemed disposessed of any worry whatsoever as to what went on in the other room and bent to inspect the ribs which 62 still clasped.

"Ach. Those'll be sore for a bit. You hurt anywhere else?"

62 shook his head mutely, eyes on the doorway of the sleeping chamber. He looked up at Baro with genuine fear. "Sir! We have to..."

"Stop them?" Baro laughed. "Don't worry, kid. Zan's no rookie and he's not completely brainless. He won't do or allow anything stupid."

He guided 62 to the couch in the middle of the small lounge area and pressed him softly down on it, then took a seat beside. Crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back, he gave the cadet a wink. "We just gotta wait for the storm to blow over."

Long minutes, and a few curious visits from neighboring trainers, which Baro waved away each time later, the sound of the fighting did die down, although ragged breaths and raised voices seeped through the wall.

...

"Why shouldn't I?" Rardyrth demanded. After the whole fiasco, he believed 62 lucky to be given to the Kaminoans to do what they wanted with. The problems he'd caused for years mixed with the added displeasure of being fought over by the man who stood across from him, blade still raised, chest heaving as his own was.

The insult of someone else telling him what to do with his own property, in his own room, someone who dared tell him what he could and couldn't do with a clone. A clone! Millions of the same creature, and none so faulty as this one.

"Because," Zan looked at him over the edge of the ancient rapier, the light catching in his eyes in that feral way-steady, narrowed, and unwavering. He was unmarked, although he'd managed to nick Rardyrth a few times. Not deeply, just enough to show he could, which infuriated the Trandoshan even further. But his voice was calm, reasoning. "He's finally become what you wanted him to. Willing to sacrifice everything."

Rardyrth thought that over for a long moment with tightened jaw.

"We ran every drill you wanted." Zan continued, easing up the posture of defense slightly, but not completely. " He did just fine for me and Baro. No mistakes, no accidents..."

"Did you not witness what occurred today? That cadet is cursed, I tell you."

"That wasn't his fault! Tell me you're not that dumb, Rardryth. Tell me you haven't been blaming that kid for every tiny little thing that goes wrong, every time."

"Gutterfish came to challenge me. Thinks I rigged the cable. "

"If I hadn't seen your reaction when it happened I might've believed it too, Rardyrth. Can't say as I've ever seen you be anything other than awful to him. Ever. "

"I was trying to keep him alive!" Rardryth's eyes were fire and his teeth clicked pointed edges against themselves as he spoke. "You think the long necks turn a blind eye to any of their science projects that aren't up to par? If so, you're woefully ignorant of the depth of their inclincation to avoid disgrace, Zan. Tell me you believe or have seen otherwise. Just try."

It was a challenge he knew the other trainer would rise to meet. He waited for the answer he knew would come, would infuriate him to no end.

"Give him to me. Give him to me and they won't touch him. "

"Why?!"

Rardyrth swung his blade and toppled the desk chair. It splintered the wood with a dry crack. "What is this power you have? Why is it you can do as you wish?!"

Zan lifted an eyebrow.

"It's not power." He peered at the other trainer seriously, relenting. " You really want to know?"

"Tell me! Tell me, and you can have...him." He glowered at the door and it was obvious he had no love for the cadet, but he wasn't the type to give something of value to someone without a return. Zan have him a long look.

"I want the other two as well. The ones who came to get us," he said simply.

Rardyrth scowled. It was obvious who he spoke of. So that was how and why he came there. That was predictable but he couldn't fathom the interest the other trainer had in rejected cadets.

He conceded.

"Your explanation?"

Zan sighed. "It's not as glamorous as the rumors, I assure you." He looked at the ceiling and shook his head. Returned his eyes to Raydyrth.

"A jedi called Syfo Dias approached my father with a request years ago. Asked for help funding a project which would protect the Republic from a future threat. My father was good friends with him and agreed. Gave him credits towards it."

Rardyrth looked at him incredulously. "Your father funded all this? Paid for an entire republic army? "

"No." Zan shook his head. "The amount he gave was anything close to providing all this. I have no idea who's tossing the chips now, but I assure you it's not my father. One, he may have had a generous fortune, but not this big. Two, he's dead. Soon after his donation."

Rardyrth tilted his head at that.

"After he died, and with no communication with Sifo Dyas, I came to see just what my father helped fund, and to see it through if necessary. By the time I got here things were already in motion, Fett had been hired as a template for an army and they were in the experimental stages. The kaminoans assured me Sifo Dyas was funding it all, but I knew tht wasn't true and had doubts about the purpose of it all, even back then. So I decided to stick around. I made a deal with Fett, took a batch of my own and played like I was just a bounty hunter he hired." A small curl of amusement touched his lips. "Not working so well, that. Ten years all cooped up on one planet with the same purpose and in the same space. Vau knows I'm not someone he agreed on, and although he doesn't know why I'm here, knowing he has no power to tell me to kick it ticks him off a bit. I'm sure he's put in a good word for me with his fellows."

"And him?"

Zan tilted his head in confusion for a moment before catching on who was being asked about, and looked back at Rardyrth, forehead creasing.

"That idiot? He did something really, really stupid. To compensate he began an apprenticeship under my father. And, unfortunately, now that task has fallen to me."

The door opened and Baro stepped through, 62 slightly behind. The trainer pouted, arms crossed.

"You'd be so bored without me. Also, that's so not the awesome back story we agreed on for yours truly."

Rardyrth gave them all a long hard stare, gaze passing from Zan, to Baro, and finally 62. It lingered on the cadet, and his eyes flashed with his thoughts. For long moments the subtle shifting of fabric and hilts being readjusted against palms and breaths were the only sounds of the room. Outside the complex the sea and wind raged, a match for the emotion and the night.

But at last the shuk of a blade being resheathed came, and the clack of it placed on the nightstand. The trandoshan let out a long breath and nodded his acceptance of the explanation, or perhaps simply resignation or boredom with the situation. Either way, Zan gave a nod of his own and his own blade slipped back to its cover. His eyes found Baro when he turned, and 62 felt the soft clench of fingers on his shoulder and a hand at his back coaxing him out of the room.

"Come on, let's go collect your stuff." Zan said, smacking a hand against the back of the boy's head playfully as he passed.

62 looked over his shoulder as he left the room, and Rardyrth's grasp, forever. There wasn't much to pass between them. No affection or remorse at the parting. Only deep rooted surprise on 62's behalf and dismissal on Rardryths part. But the trainer did give him the briefest and faintest of nods, so slight it could have just been a play of the poor lighting, before returning to his bunk. And there had been something nearly indescribable in that last look. Something that had never, in eight years taken light in those eyes. 62 left with a hand on his back and disbelief in his chest. The kindest action on his Trainer's part in his life had just passed and it had been soft and silent as the footsteps of the men he now, and for the rest of his training, walked with.

...

.

Such a delay guys, I'm sorry! I hope you enjoyed it, though. It was a bit longer. So much to tell there. An ending and a beginning. There are a few more chapters of the boy's settling in and then graduating before we move onto the greats (Rex and Fox and Cody and Thorn).

Cozzizzie and TGP: thank you guys for your dedicated reviewing! I hope you liked Zan's backstory. There will be a bit more info disclosed in the next few chapters :D


	8. Chapter 8

~Tales of Kamino chapter 8~

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...

It had been a few weeks since that night. Those moments in the darkness that began with a desperate choice and a plea for help, thrown words and emotions, met blades, wind and sea to the glass, and then a finality that had changed everything. The trip back to their bunks had been eerily silent. It had been hands on their backs, and then arms crossed and new eyes watching as they had gathered their things beneath the surprised and familiar stares of their batch. Brought to a room where others had awoken and helped them settle in without questions or words, just knowing looks and faint smiles.

Less than a month since they had exchanged everything, trading the old for new: trainers, brothers, lives. 62, 28, and 37 were still getting the hang of it, still dazzled by the disparity.

It was strange just how different a place could feel when you felt and saw and did...differently. The halls of the complex no longer seemed as cold and barren. Strict lines and mandated silence and orders. There was still order, sure, and expectations. But everything was done not with an air of forboding and dread of what came next, but rather amused and excited anticipation of it. In the lulls there were secret looks and jokes and laughs tucked and muffled in sleeves and amid walking and dressing and meals. In the heat of training there was companionship and hands. Always hands: reaching out, helping up, clasped in support or jest.

The same place, different people.

They passed their old batch in the halls again that morning, which wasn't too uncommon, although they hadn't trained with them since that night.

The three transferred cadets kept eyes on their former comrades as they walked by. They didn't exchange words, they never did, although they were sure their new trainers wouldn't have minded. Their previous batch still fell under the code of Rardyrth and they were loathe to tempt his fury against their old brothers. They had received many looks during these brief occurrences of closeness, and this time was no different. Some of envy, others dismissal, a few angered. A couple gave them small smiles in the anonymity of their passage. Looks that said they were grateful and happy that ones who had been outcast for so long had finally found a place of belonging.

62 hadn't expected the twinges of his chest at the sight of them coming and going. He hadn't been close to anyone in years, hadn't allowed them or himself to be. But there was a finality in seeing someone you'd eaten, slept and trained with for years disappearing down the hallway and not knowing when you'd see them again. In front of him he saw 28 and 37 twitch with the same regard.

When they stepped into the water chamber a hush fell on their new comrades and they looked around curiously. The murmurs of that morning had proven true. There were six ARCs standing beside the water, arms laced behind their backs, helmeted faces following the movement of the new arrivals. At the far side of the room they watched Zan approach a man in Mandalorian armor, saw them clasp arms in the way of friends, and exchange words that left them both grinning. Zan gave a nod of his head to everyone in his batch then a pointed one at the ARCs, as did the trainer at his side.

And then he purposefully strode away and took a seat with the other man on the benches along the far wall. A ripple of excitement ran through their comrades. The ARCs inclined their heads once in unified amusement, turned to the cadets.

And the drill began.

It was definitely untrod territory for the newest members, but they were eager to take up the challenge with their brothers and dove into the water exercises. Where Rardyrth had expected efficiency through pre-planned tactics and maneuvers, their new batch was learned in improvisations and testing, trying, manipulating the environment until they had mastery of it.

The ARCs appeared to function that way as well, modeling it themsleves, expecting it of those they worked with. They led them in batches of diving and searching and battling and conquering. Taking out aqua droids and disabling targets with a devotion and manner both tangled humor and blaringly efficient. These were brothers trained for deeper and darker things than those of the regular ground variety like 28, 37, and 62's batchers. Their way of doing things whispered of missions taken alone and with high stakes placed on their shoulders. High expectations and the knowledge that the game would be in their favor when it was. It showed.

And there was a bond between them that spoke of more than simple near vat space or awakening age, a unity among them that was embedded not through genetics or close bunks.

Suited in their gear the water was as feelingless as space, though resistance was greater and they watched and copied as the ARCs modeled maneuvers. Trying to match that level which seemed unattainable.

In their suits and beneath the water, it was silent and dark and weightless. The sounds of their breaths seeped from the open comms and the water was an unseen blanket bogging their limbs. The holo-droids opened fire and their shots were red flashes unleashed and streaking like controlled lightning. They swerved and dodged as best they could, but there was no roll to fall into, no crouch to be taken in liquid. Water fighting was the stuff of dreams. Weightless yet heavy, seemless yet cloying with invisible fingers that hindered movement. Despite their best efforts, some were taken down by the shots and had to be dragged from the water when their suits simmed the dead weight.

Again and again the ARCs pressed the offensive with them. Gesturing and flares and staticed voices over the comms. They took charge just enough to keep a backdrop net on their charges, and just as little to allow for the cadets to take their own paths, press charges, attack and dodge and pursue and cover one another. They fell between them like creature of the sea. And the others seemed to be buoyed by that.

It was another oddity. Witnessing others of higher calibre had always been a door to shame among Rardyrth. A contest, and reminder of their failures. But these cadets cheered the ARCs on, watched in awe, took up turns mimicking what they saw. Some took to it naturally, while others struggled. And that was acceptable as those who did it well. The path of failure was light-hearted teasing and admittances among them. Asking for help and receiving it openly.

Baffling to the few so unaccustomed to it, although they sought and desired strongly to become versed in it.

And amid their own trials and failures and dodges and shots the ARCs were there moving among them like slips of the sea itself, mere currents passing by, adjusting grips, fixing stances, hands on backs, strategically placed shots over shoulders. Pats on the backs and chuckles in their comms, always straight shots of instant disablement to the enemy when that was their purpose.

The exchanged cadets had felt many things over the years during training. Anger, dread, indifference, the desire for it to end. But never that they could recall: awe, safe, proud.

They climbed out of the water at last, hearts hammering and blood humming, handshakes and grins made clumsy by exhaustion, but successful.

As they undressed and changed they looked to the ARCs, who sat slightly apart as they did so as well: older, bigger, different. But still the same. They gave small dips of the head and curls of the mouths as they left. Brothers.

...

Even in the darkness, it was different.

There was no ostracizing, no factions. Where the ranks of their old batch had been lines drawn by specialty or performance, or in their case, failure and rejection, here there was none. Likewise, where there had existed secret helping of others who were sub par within their old batch, hushed whispers and shadowed training in the hopes of preventing a comrade from being taken away, here it was done in the open and merely for the sake of amusement or companionship.

And, they had never been teased or touched as much as they had been in these last few weeks by others in their entire lives. Ravi, who had taken to being called by name now seemed to be revelling in the new way of things. He fell seemlesslessly into the jokes and jostling, finding his own sense of humor and telling outlandish tales that had the others howling. 28 wasn't normally far apart or behind, although he had a subtler, quieter way, and he had just as many others vying for his attention. Fellow medics who had seen his skill and were eager for tips, others who just saw him as another brother to include in their fun. But he seemed happy for it.

62 was still struggling. With no more reason to push others away, he found the emotions warring within him. Habits ingrained by years, battling with the desire to join in, joke, be touched and a part of it. He still found himself much more solitary than these brothers in a way and sometimes found himself craving the solitude his old brothers offered. It was a mixed feeling. He both desired and avoided the affection at once. It was too foreign and comforting and strange and constant.

Like now.

Somehow Hatch and Rush had ended up lounging on the edge of his bunk, and were exchanging banter as though it was the mess, as 62 tried to ignore them and sleep. He had a mind to activate the sleeping pod and close it so they were both bumped off. He could feel both of them pressing against his side and leg and gave a frustrated kick which sent them tumbling to the floor with a yelp.

Hatch peered over the edge of the bed and grinned.

"...Oh, he's definitely going."

62 had no clue what they were talking about, and didn't much care. He rolled over and pulled the covers over his head. He blinked in surprise when they were yanked away and glared at Hatch who had settled down beside him with an exaggerated pout.

Rush laughed as he got to his feet, looking down at them with hands on his hips.

"Look at his face! I think he's going to clock you first."

Hatch made a hasty retreat, rolling off the bed, hands up in surrender. He laughed. "Ok, ok. Just. ..come with us, ok?"

62 narrowed his eyes at them both.

"Come where?"

A conspiratorial look passed betwen them and they both grinned.

"Secret mission. Join us?"

62 had no idea what that might entail, knowing them. They were as just bad as his original troublemaking batchmates and he wasn't in any way interested in finding out what it was this time. He shook his head and lay back down as 28 and Ravi approached. Ravi gave 62 a look and poked him in the back with the toe of his boot. "Is he being boring again?"

"He doesn't want to go."

"He just needs motivation." Ravi climbed into the bunk and snuggled up to 62, wrapping him in an exuberant hug from behind. 62 shot him a death glare over his shoulder and reciprocated by swatting him and making an effort to swipe him with a pillow. But Hatch caught his arm and took up place at his other side, pinning him with a chuckling embrace as well. He laughed into 62's side as the snagged cadet tried to extricate himself.

Ravi glanced at Hatch as he fought to maintain a grip on 62's flailing arm.

"I don't know about you Hatch, but I can never fall asleep proper without a story."

"You tell stories?" The other cadet beamed at 62. "Let's hear it then."

"You're both going to hear ringing if you dont get off!"

Rush and 28 were doubled up with laughter and Hatch looked up at them, his grin widening. He smacked the bunk with his free hand.

"Hop in, vode. Plenty of room."

They both made to do so but 62 let out an exasperated breath.

"Fine! Let's go."

He was still grumbling as they walked past the rows of other bunks, some cadets still laughing at the raucus and giving them knowing winks as they passed.

...

There were two ARCs waiting for them in the muted half shadows of the corridor.

The transferred cadets recognized them at once as some of the ones they had trained with that morning. They appeared much more sinister in the half light, arms crossed and reclining against the walls with feet to the reflective tiles made liquid by the shadows. Different. Darker. Dangerous. They had an air about them now that bordered menacing, made unintentionally so in the still of night. They weren't someone any of them fancied being on the wrong side of.

Their greeting was open and friendly, though. The soft chuckles spilling from their helmets at the open looks of awe as they introduced themselves. Mereel and Jaing.

"These the new kids? Buir told us about you." The one who had introduced himself as Mereel asked with a tilt to his helmet.

Rush gave their name and designations and then bobbed a head in deference at the ARCs. "Our big brothers. Proper Mandos and everything." A sly smile passed his lips. "They teach us all kinds of neat tricks from time to time."

"And naughty words," Hatch admitted with a grin.

Jaing gave a shrug and Mereel touched fingers to his visor in a mock salute, then gestured for them to fall into step behind them.

They followed the corridor until it split and passed down others darker and deeper into the bowels of the underwater city. The path they took was vacant and silent except for the light tap of their boots and the touch of the sea against the outer walls.

At last they came upon what appeared to be a utility closet, a thin grey door with grated slats and a restricted notice. There was some code to enter, but the ARCs knew or bypassed it easily with quick fingers to the buttons and they slipped inside, reclosing it behind them. To the side of the small space there were crates stacked and Jaing stepped up and began fiddling with the ventilation hatch above. Soundlessly removing it and setting it aside within moments. He and Mereel slipped in the opening like shadows, followed by Hatch and Rush. 28 and Ravi and 62 followed as well, wondering just where they were going. They weren't keen on doing something disruptive or troubling to their new trainers. But they trusted their new batchmates, and in a small way the ARCs. the familiar uniforms igniting memories of the untouchable ghosts they had trained with.

For a while the only sound was the shuffling of their bodies within the vent tubing and breathing. They were helmetless, not receiving their own until graduation. But the ARCS wore theirs and used their visors to light the way. Their movements told that this was a familiar endeavor, one they had done many times before.

As they made their way across one room, a large lab of sorts, they paused, the ARCS observing the kaminoans below, a few of which 28, 62, and Ravi recognized.

Mereel's gaze lingered on the techs and doctors as he lay staring at them for a few moments. He made a pointed gesture at a group of them who stood in the corner, bent over some vials.

"There she is. It would be so easy..."

"Don't tempt me," said Jaing, his gaze panning the beings below.

"Oy. I like her." Rush said, watching as well. "Off limits for your games."

"You like Ko Sai?" Mereel visibly shuddered and looked back. His voice was laced with surprise and disgust.

"What? No. Nala Se." Rush seemed to think about it for a bit, then admitted with raised eyebrows. "You can play with Ko Sai all you like."

The ARCs chuckled and moved on, leaving the new cadets confused.

When they reached their destination, there was an opening in the vent that showed the room below and they saw a large holo-display through the slats.

"He isn't here yet." Hatch said and motioned for the others to gather aorund the opening and wait.

They all settled on their bellies, and 28, Ravi and 62 scanned the room, then returned their attention back to their companions, their eyes lingering on the ARCs and tracing the outlines of their armor. At that moment they shared similar thoughts. Imagining what it would be like to be able to wear that gear. To have those skills teamed with that equipment...the stuff of wishes.

The two being observed seemed to recognize the look. "Snappy stuff, right?" Jaing had taken off his helmet and set it aside. He winked.

"Catch us around sometime, we'll let you try it on." Mereel said, pulling off his helmet and crossing his arms in front and resting his chin in his hands.

Ravi was surprised, "Fett'd allow that?"

"Fett? Why would he-oh. You thought we were some of his."

"Honest mistake," Hatch grinned. "You guys look similar. We had a training run with a few of the Alphas last week. "

"You trained wiht those clods? And you're still alive?" Jaing blinked.

"Color me delightfully surprised." Mereel snorted.

Rush grinned and have them a side-look. "You lot still working out who's prettier, then?"

"Tch. Not our fault they're subpar."

"I think they're amazing. They were made for greater things than us regulars anyways," Hatch admitted.

"Yeah, they didnt have high expectations for you lot..." Mereel offered playfully.

The words were spoken with just the right amount of teasing and affection to avoid offense. A slip of the eyes to the side, a grin and a pat on the head. And they were accepted with grace. Rolling of the eyes, a swat of the hand away. A grin. 62 and 28 and Ravi watched the exchange raptly. Remembering the joke, this glimpse of a bond their new batchers shared with these brothers of unattainable skills and things and codes.

They fell to silence and settled in to wait.

Whoever they had expected to enter the room, it wasn't Zan, and there was a collective gasp through them as he stepped up to the console and entered a calling code. The others found amusement in their shock but remained silent, letting them take it in.

A woman appeared on the display. The backdrop around her was that of a residence, peaceful and simple but lovely. She smiled as her eyes fell on Zan, and her appearance was telling of her association with him immediately.

The same black hair swept across one eye, allthough hers fell to her shoulders and was streaked with a few lines of grey, and her eyes were differently shaped and green. But the nose and lips were strikingly similar. Her age was indecipherable, her face unlined, although there was a tint to her eyes that spoke of many years seen and experienced. Lived and loved and fought and lost. She greeted their trainer warmly, a mother's greeting.

Mereel winked at them. "Zan's mom. Calls her every week. Even though he's not supposed to. Baro's got it rigged-even we couldn't break the secuitry code and hack in remotely. No idea where she's calling from, and no one else here is savvy enough to detect it. This is the only way we can catch a view. Beautiful, eh?"

"He favors her a lot. I definitely prefer the original, female version, though." Jaing pulled a piece of something from a pouch on his utility belt. Broke it into pieces, passed them out.

"This...is your secret mission?" 62 asked after he'd finished his piece.

"Yep." Rush admitted, still chewing his. Savoring it. He glanced at 62, curious. "Not good enough?"

62's cheeks heated and he shook his head, not in disagreement, but more in confusion. "It just...wasn't what I expected." Hatch patted him on the back with a smile.

Beside him Ravi and 28 were spell bound. "You get to see her every week? How long have you been sneaking here?"

Mereel tapped his chin in thought. "A few years? After Baro taught us some hacks. We picked up a signal that wasn't supposed to be there. We traced it to here." He looked at them all and gave a dip of his head in their direction. "And then we shared, because we're nice fellows."

Rush and Hatch both snorted and Jaing gave them a light-hearted rap on their backs.

...

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So, this chapter was lost and rewritten and it came out a bit different than the original. I hope you guys liked it. Two more chapters of this crew, then onto another! Obi-wan shows up briefly next time.

Thank you for your reviews everyone. TGP and TessaFred, Cozzizzie and Ms CT 782. I'm glad you guys liked the last one. I'm looking forward to your updates in the works Ms CT 782 (you know that :) ). TessaFred, I'm so glad you're enjoying them. They're my favorite too!


	9. Chapter 9

~Tales of Kamino Chapter 9~

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...

The hover-cube formed beneath Rush's feet, the edges of it lighting an outline on the floor and he sidestepped it quickly, before it peeled from the tiles and shot straight up. He watched as it lingered at shoulder-height before shifting left and then whizzing across the arena. There was no scrape of the ground to mark its passage, it was silent in that feat, but it moved with an electric buzzing that singed the air and hissed velocity, and when it met another of its kind there was a resounding crack that left his wrist comm fizzing

The same tell-tale whirring came from his right and he ducked just in time as it zipped over his head. He felt it move his hair and spared it a quick glance, eyes slippping back to the one that had left his feet moments ago. It had collided with another of the boxes levitating within the chamber, knocking off the hapless brother who had just managed to climb upon it. Rush watched him topple to the ground and remain lying there, wisely, as he caught his breath.

While the boxes weren't moving too terribly fast-they were avoidable if one paid attenton, they were in constant unpredictable motion and it was difficult to catch balance upon one in its own respect without being knocked into by another. And while having to avoid the blows of others, all the while with an electrostaff in your hands. The combination kept things interesting.

They melted into the floor and walls without any rhyme or reason, and quickly, bumping, toppling, knocking the wind from you if you were unlucky enough to take one to the chest or back. The sound of armored backs and the sizzling threads of live staff ends meeting the floor was constant. He'd given himself a jolt with his own staff from being upended twice already.

Rush decided to remain kneeling for a moment, hoping another didn't form beneath his knee and boots, eyes scanning the room for a particular brother.

He caught sight of him across the room, the small scar at his temple as telling as the way he maneuvered his staff against his opponent. He was switching blows with Trust (as 62 had eventually come to call himself), equally identifiable by the way he fought.

They appeared evenly matched but it was a farce, Rush knew from experience, and he approached as a grin found his mouth. Although Trust was a better fighter over-all by a touch, Ravi seemed possesed of an innate handling and skill of the staff.

He was merely biding his time with Trust, waiting for a flashy sweep or parry that would render him the winner, rather than overwhelming from the get-go. It was a noticeable difference betwen them. Trust always went for the quickest and surest way to end something while Ravi played around until things got too heated or serious. Or a dazzling opportunity presented itself.

Rush stepped behind a stationary wall-partition, a slight safe zone- the cubes appeared reppeled by the barrier through some work of magnetics, and he watched as Ravi finally took an opening. Trust was sent sprawling to his back, staff flying from his hands and clattering across the floor. He remained laying there, stunned for a moment before his head swiveled to the side, eyes finding his weapon before he raised himself to his elbows and gave Ravi a frustrated, tired look.

"Shock me already, you di'kut."

There were points gained through that for this exercise. The staffs weren't set to damage but they still gave a decent zing.

Ravi made a show of twirling the staff one-handed, then with a flip raised it over a shoulder and held it in an exaggerated pose to strike. In a flash it snaked down and Trust flinched involuntarily.

But the crackling violet current at the tip never made contact. It stopped just short of his chest and lingered there until Trust let out an aggravated breath and glared up at the other brother blinking down at him.

"Did you really think I was going to do it?" Ravi withdrew the staff and laughed.

"That's the point, Ravi! Quit playing around and do it."

Ravi closed his eyes and held up a finger, strikingly reminscent of Baro. The scarred clone seemed to have picked up a lot of mannerisms from him, Rush noticed. He was still observing them from a few feet away, waiting for his opening.

"Nope."

Trust groaned and began to rise. He glowered at the outstretched hand presented to him but finally took it and let himself be pulled to his feet. He retrieved his staff and gave Ravi a look over his shoulder, eyeing the hit counter for recorded blows on his chest. "How many points do you have anyways?"

Ravi tapped a finger to his chin thoughtfully and glanced at the marker on his gauntlet. "Two. I slipped and caught myself, and I got Rush once."

Trust shook his head in disbelief. "I've got forty-two." It wasn't a brag, more of an exasperated admission. "You should have a ton. You're way better with the staff."

Ravi shrugged. Set to looking for another opponent. "I'm morally opposed to using my superior powers for dominance."

"I'm not."

Rush had closed the distance between them and swiped Ravi's feet out from under him before he could even swivel in defense and he fell face-first on the floor with a defined smack. His staff spun from his hand. He rose to his elbows just as Rush's staff met him between the shoulder blades and the current snapped an arc betwen them and he collapsed again. He lay still for a moment, stunned.

Trust looked on amused as Ravi finally coughed and rolled into his back. He had seen Rush approaching and had admittedly looked forward to what had followed.

"Ow." Ravi blinked up at the one who had taken him out with a squint then gave a half cough/, half chuckle when he realized who it was.

Rush grinned down at him, hand on his hip, twirling the staff with the other. "How's the floor taste, oh glorious one?"

"Pleasantly sanitary, actually." Ravi scooted across the floor to retrieve his staff from a few feet away, rolling out of the way of a cube skimming past. "Good cleaning bots on this floor." He gave a meaningful gesture with a finger as he rose from his knees. " I'm going to get you back, R'ika."

"You'll have to catch me first."

Ravi had boots to the floor in pursuit only a fraction after Rush had taken off. Trust rolled his eyes at them both and stepped away to find a more serious opponent.

Rush ducked and dodged brothers and the cubes alike, leaping over them and scuttling beneath and between a few feet ahead of Ravi, only just managing to keep the small distance. His time was limited, he knew he was going to get creamed. It had been worth it.

Just as he leapt off another box rising from the floor, he regained his footing and took a sprinting step when his shin hit something solid. He was sent tumbling head over heels and ended up on his back, disorientated and winded. Ravi, too close behind to correct himself in time to avoid collision without an abrupt stop had landed just shy of him and was pinwheeling his arms trying not to fall forward. He'd almost gained composure when he was struck from behind and pitched forward gracelessly.

He landed on Rush with a thud as their armor and foreheads met and was again given a staff to the back. The current crackled and danced between them both. They lay there for a moment in a daze before Rush gave Ravi an indignant shove and he rolled off. They both looked up with hands to their heads.

"Two for one, ladies."

Nix stood over them, head tilted and raised eyebrows, a beacon of satisfaction. "Better skedaddle before the others see you two down and repay their debts."

"Hey, I helped you earlier." Rush made a show of pouting, though catching sight of Ravi clutching his head beside him, it faded to more of a slightly pained grin

"Only after you made me eat tile." Nix made to cross his arms but remembered he was still holding a live staff and thought better of it.

Ravi was looking both confused and amused between them but let out a yelp and jumped as a staff came down right beside him.

"Ha! Gotcha! Well, I would've if I had meant to." Hatch stood peering down at him proudly. 28 came jogging up, a decidedly unhappy and frustrated expression on his face. He looked at the counter for received hits on each of their chests plates, lingered on Ravi's with a frown.

"You've been shocked thrity-two times, Ravi! Are you running into staffs on purpose?"

Ravi shrugged beneath the heavy stare as the others checked their own stats on the sly. He decided against the retort that had immediately sprung to the tip of his tongue.

28 had taken, or rather been given by his new batchmates, the moniker Surge due to his nature of having a sudden surge of undeterrable focus, often trailing or igniting distemper, when it came to performing his duties as a medic. It seemed to be something of a common trait among most of his specialty, although Surge's could be particularly overbearing at times.

But it was that same overbearing-ness which had kept them all in one piece before they transferred, what made sure he and 62 and a few others of their old batch had made it through the night on more than one occasion. It wasn't something Ravi could seriously fault him for.

"Its fine. I'm pretty sure I've seen Zan zap Baro over a hundred times already and he's still standing," he said at last and Surge snorted as the others vocalized their agreement with chuckles.

"Oh, he hasn't been shocking me every time."

They all started in surprise as Baro leapt down from a cube passing overhead and peered between them curiously before glancing over his shoulder and scanning the room in a way that told them he was on the lookout for the aforementioned trainer. The hit counter on his chest read 57 and Surge cringed. Baro noticed and threw his arms out to the sides. "Still standing!" he announced proudly. "In spite of a respectable amount of walloping, too."

"You're not hiding, are you?" Hatch asked, eyes following the older man's. "He sure does like to give you a decent whack." He looked back at Baro with a grin. " And he's quite good at it."

Baro gave a dirty look over his shoulder. "All that force-licking Jedi training..."

Nix, Rush and Hatch fell in to a fit of laughter that left Surge and Ravi feeling not only lost but deeply surprised.

"Jedi training?" Ravi looked between them all. "Wait, Zan's a...jedi?" At his side Surge looked equally stunned.

"What? No." Baro snorted. He glanced again over his shoulder, his expression obvious he expected Zan to appear any second. "Definitely not."

"But he trained with Jedi? Was his father one, then? Or-" Surge almost asked if it was Zan's mother, but felt that question could open up inquires about eavesdropping.

Baro looked like he was about to say something but choked on a laugh and shook his head. "Zan's dad? A Jedi? Haha! Ah, no. He had a couple sabers of his own...filched or persuaded from a few unsavories who had found them in their hands over the years. He may have known or befriended a Jedi or two, who knows. But he wasn't one himself. He just found lightsabers interesting, I suppose. And he insisted Zan knew how to handle one for whatever reason."

"Which he didn't care for, " Nix added and Hatch and Rush snickered.

"Not much, no." Baro grinned, looked again to Surge and Ravi. "Jedi training. That's what Zan's old man called it, at least. Apparently he thought it was hilarious, and educational, to dress Zan up like a Jedi, robes and all, and take him to the shadiest joint he could find that was notorious for hating force-folk. Then he'd hand one of the swords to Zan, ignite it, shout 'jedi' and take off."

Rush and Hatch and Nix were laughing again. "His...his face when he told us." He smacked Rush's arm. "How old were we?"

Rush shook his head. "I don't even rememebr. I just remember we all kept asking him to show us his lightsaber and train us so many times he forbade the mentioning of it for months."

"We were three. I completely remeber being three for that reason." Nix said.

"So, it defintely wasn't proper lightsaber lessons, but he learned how to get by with one at least," Baro finished, chuckling himself now.

Ravi had a look of immense admiration on his face, though whether it was for Zan or his father the others weren't entirely sure. In contrast Surge looked a little unsettled.

"He had to...use it on people?" The others fell quiet and looked at him. Truth be told they hadn't really thought about that. Baro opened his mouth to say something.

"No."

Zan was there. As suddenly as he hadn't been moments ago, and he regarded them all through narrowed eyes. Baro raised his staff intsinctvely but Zan just gave him a look before turning to the others.

"What're you lot doing, having a tea party?"

Their sheepish expressions seemed to appease him and he sighed, deactivating his staff and swining it absent-mindedly as he glanced at the medic

"I didn't kill anyone with it, Surge. Though sometimes I had those kind of thoughts for my father," he admitted, but he grinned as he spoke. "For the record, he didn't really take off. Not completely. He just kind of...stood back and watched. And he did intervene when I was over my head, which believe it or not happened. A lot. " An embarassing memory must have struck him because he cringed enough to curl their lips before continuing.

"There were rules to jedi-training. Disabling only. No killing." He looked between them all. "Do you know how hard that is? To not kill someone with a three foot long glowstick that cuts through everything?" He shook his head. "I may as well have been Jedi training for how easy that was." He looked to them all for mock sympathy. But Baro was having none of it.

"Oh, builds character. I'm sure you made lots of friends."

"Oh, lots. And some of them were real charmers." He gave a half shudder and pleaded the transgression against him further. "You know, I couldn't even maim them. No maiming! No fun at all." He paused and pointed to himself and the scar that ran across his own face "...except myself when I decided to get a little too fancy-slashy."

"No such thing." Baro smiled warmly, then gave a laugh and looked between the now-grown cadets. "Ah, it's a shame you guys couldn't have known him. He was great. Crazy as all force, but great." He shook his head and turned to Zan. "You're a lot like him, though. Same sense of humor."

Zan considered him for a second. "I did hit you too many times. I'm nothing like him."

"Ha. 'Hit you too many times'. ..'not like him'. Ha."

The dark haired trainer did laugh at that and then he looked them all over where they stood for a moment. Thoughtful.

Then abruptly he lifted his head and peered past them all, at something just behind them with sudden confusion.A small hint of worry. They all swiveled as one to see what had caught his eye, expecting a stray droid or a rogue cube, perhaps even Lama Su by his expression. Yet when they turned saw nothing out of the ordinary.

But they did hear the ignition of the staff from behind.

Before they could so much as blink in response, they were all laid out across the floor in quick secession from sharp jabs to their backs.

Zan was walking away twirling the staff in a satisfied manner when they finally managed to look up.

Baro groaned, eyes narowed and linked arms behind his head.

"I should've seen that one." He turned his head to them with a look of pure admiration. " He's exactly like him."

...

Obi-wan followed Taun We down the corridor of the dome city, sea-wrapped and color-void, tossing any expectations he might have had about both the place, it's inhabitants, and the bounty hunter he sought, out the window. He was having a hard time keeping up with reality as it was.

The kaminoan in front of him was a lithe outline, tall and tinted liquid-moving, her clothing and skin slightly darker than the hallway and polished floors down which they walked, and standing out for that small difference.

He found his gaze drifting to the large open area beneath them where many of the identical soldiers stood collecting their gear and falling into formations. There was a unity among them that spoke of more than training, a cohesiveness to their movement that was a stark reminder of so many men sharing the same body, the same steps to the floor, the same weapons to identical shoulders, the same arms saluting smartly. He heard a few speak, differentiated from the rest by the colored streaks on their arms, the same voice. If nothing else they were a force to be reckoned with by the shock they brought upon him upon seeing them.

They had passed a line of younger ones on the way, forty identical children in two neat rows of twenty. Forty small faces that had stared up at him in wonder at a brief introduction. Snapped to and saluted in a disciplined unison. Blinked up at him like he was a legend. Mystical. THe stuff of stories.

They had no idea just how mutual the feeling was. He was still reeling from it, the vividly curious identical children...they were all children in the force, even those who stood and marched and carried weapons as men. Children created at the request of one of his own, for something he had been trained to appease and oppose and avoid.

His thoughts were so tangled with it he nearly collided with two men who approached from an adjoining hallway. Only the pause in their strides prevented it and they all stopped and regarded one another with equal surprise.

They were human, not clones, and they wore armor which was of a vintage style, nothing like that of the bounty hunter he sought. Though their eyes immediately found and lingered on the hilt of his lightsaber before returning to his face.

"Ah, sorry about that. My mind was elsewhere," Obi-wan offered a quick smile in apology. It was returned by both, although they both still appeared deeply surprised. The taller of the two dipped his head.

"Master Jedi."

Taun We had returned upon realizing she had lost her charge. She passed a thin arm between them politely.

"Master Jedi, these men are Zan and Baro. They are trainers here." She gave a nod to them. "And this is Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi."

"Trainers?" Obi-wan inquired. His first thought was that they were comrades of Fett. The man who had greeted him had narowed his eyes briefly at the mention of his name, a blink of recognition of some kind, although Obi-wan was certain they'd never met.

"Yes. While we also use sims and flashes, each batch of units is given physicsl instructors as well." She stared down at the two men with a mix of recognition and pride. "Their batch is not quite ready, though exceptional according to the tests. I am certain they will serve the Republic well."

"That's...good to hear." He still couldn't get a good read on the man who seemed to recognize him. He was distinctly apprehensive, yet not unfriendly. Not quite. The man beside him was as easy to read as an open book, his feelings a match to his face.

"Finally came for a visit, eh? Ten years later. You force-folk really do take your time with things. Something happen out there?"

It took Obi-wan a second to realize he meant off-planet. Ten years? More to be confused about.

"I'm actually looking for someone. A bounty hunter named Jango Fett. Do you know him?"

"Ol' cranky pants? Yep. We're on our way to see him now." He looked Obi-wan up and down and crossed his arms. "Didn't know he invited a Jedi."

"Oh, he doesn't know I'm here. Yet. I'm looking forward to speaking with him, though."

"We won't keep you, then." Zan said. The feeling of suspicion had deepened within him, though it was no longer of the Jedi who stood before him and his eyes drifted in the direction of the soldiers below. His gaze lingered there for a moment, and he remained expressionless in doing so, before turning and offering Obi-wan and Taun We an incline of his head. He spun on a heel smartly after and gave Baro a rap on the shoulder. "We'll speak with him later."

Baro blinked after him, then gave Taun We a wink and Obi-wan a quick grin as he turned.

"Guess we won't be joining you, then. You should meet up with us later. Candlight dinner on the terrace in an hour, if you're interested. It's always so dazzlingly sunny here." His eyes panned the Jedi a final time in amusement.

Obi-wan chuckled. He was still drenched from the short walk to the complex from the landing platform earlier.

"Perhaps another time."

...

Don't forget to go on to the next chapter ~~~

Double update this time :)

Thank you for the favorites and follows and reviews guys! TessaFred, Sued13, Cozzizzie and TGP- I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this story. Sorry for the very long wait!

Cozzizzie: I think I imagined them seeing her as a little of both. Mostly a mom, though. :)


	10. Chapter 10

~Tales of Kamino chapter 10~

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Double update this time, don't forget to read Ch. 9 first if you haven't :)

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They shuffled into the projection room, barefoot and rubbing arms across their eyes. All of them deeply confused and profoundly curious. It had happened before, these sudden, unplanned mid-night beckonings. Usually a play of mischief by Baro labeled training, though they imagined it was more often than not the result of boredom on his part as the drills were generally obtuse and ridiculously impassible. They murmured among themselves, preparing for whatever might come, fingers rifling hair uncertainly, shifting gazes and feet, half-awake chuckles.

But it was Zan who entered first, and stepped to the console without a word with Baro looking just as surprise-woken in his wake. They were in an equal state of undress, though Zan's sleep clothes appeared as untouched by a bed as Baro's looked rumpled by it. And only Baro carried his usual scabbard. Zan was without and that alone was enough to draw them to silence.

They became unsure in a different manner then. Before activating the holos Zan paused, his, gaze passing over them and it was a strange look he gave them. Foreign. Uncertainty. As unlike him as the silence from his fellow trainer. But there was some shared thought between them. A strange knowledge that lent them a foreboding look and feel.

There was a finality to their eyes that their batch couldn't quite fathom. Or maybe they could, and just didn't want to.

The projector hummed and the walls lit with the input, the images and sounds seeping from the unit and filling the room. The floor bloomed moss and ferns and tatters of leaf litter. Large trees spread out around and above them, thick and twined and the canopy patched sunlight through the grey-green gauze of their leaves. The sound of scurrying creatures and wind and water took up breaths and the musty floral scents met their noses.

It was a familiar projection. They had been here before. Seen it, felt it, adapted. They had survival camped and environment trained here several times. Tasting and scenting the wind, ears to the water and leaves. They knew the habits of the beasts that took up calls from the shadows and roots, the names of the fronds that snapped at their feet and how to use the syrupy liquid that fell lightly from the trees as poultice and brew for illness.

They wondered at the purpose of it all now, half-woken and barefoot and without rations or gear.

Was it a test? They looked to their trainers, but for a long time they revealed nothing and didn't speak.

At last Zan's eyes fell to them from the branches above and a small smile found his lips. He passed a hand out over the forest they stood in.

"This is where I grew up."

They blinked at that, looked around with a new wonder. Zan's home. The link of its ancestry to him changed it all somehow. They had always wondered secretly, the kind of world so remarkable a person, to their eyes, had come from. It had seemed a majestic place before, but now there was a far more sacred notion to it. A magic to the wind and moss. They burned it into their memories in a different manner than before. Noticed. Not for survival, but familiarity. Re-learned the song of the water and color of the sky. Re-saw the ferns and small pools and the roots of trees so large they were earthen arches tall enough to walk through.

"Yep." Baro pointed to a large tree to their left. "His mom gave birth just under that beauty of a tree right there. If you look you can still see the leaves the little pirate tyke learned to potty i-ow!"

Zan tapped another string of code into the projector as Baro rubbed his shoulder and the room changed once more.

The trees drew farther apart and a clearing formed around them. A river shimmered passage across it and it was saddled by a rustic bridge that led a footpath from the village that rimmed them and disappeared into the forest at their backs. Tucked among the enormous roots of the trees were many small lit homes, and there were more in the branches above. A larger building, an inn of sorts framed by a waterwheel set in motion by the stream was visible to the far left.

Zan gestured at it. "That's where I was born and raised, to be more accurate. And this, " he passed a hand over the village "is Tiruhdall. I want you all to memorize it. To...remember it." He lapsed into silence and they did as he asked.

They would have done so even if he hadn't. Their eyes danced along every stone to the footpath, found every window and door and they saw and smelled and listened. Imagined what it would have been like to grow themselves there, in that spot of meadow patched by trees and looped with leaf-clung cottages. They turned to him when they had completed this task.

"It's your home now, too."

His and Baro's eyes were on them, watching as they shifted in surprise. "We're going to give you a code. No matter where you are. No matter why, or when or how this ends. No matter who you fight for...When you're ready to come home -remember the code, and that you have one."

...

Four months later they all stood together again, one hundred and three men on the landing platform, armored and returning the light of the sun soaking in the sea as their trainers paced between them.

Something had happened that night. The night they had been given a tangible home that breathed and smelled green and was warm and skies and alive and lovely, a home that was as far opposite of hallways and labs and alloyed chambers could be. Something had taken place that very night, and whether Zan had been aware of it or merely sensed the aftermath, there had been whispers of various truths and exaggeration since. Rumors and ideas and stories that tried to put to words the moments and actions that had been the match-breath to kindling of a war.

Two men fighting in the rain. That's how it had begun. The storm lashing the water and a single lightsaber hissing back blasterfire. Heated pursuit, uncovered secrets. Staggering, dangerous secrets, an army to match theirs.

Fett had been a traitor.

And then there had been Jedi in the halls and large cruisers in the sky, and the first batch of their brothers to complete their training had put rifles to their shoulders and boots to the vast grated ramps and they had gone. Regular brothers, commandos and ARCs alike- everyone of the first round of decanting.

And many had not returned.

Four months between them, and it was the brief line of grace that let them realize their mortality without feeling it themselves yet. That bated breath which offered the comfort of brothers they had grown and trained with still alive and breathing and shifting beside them, yet also confirmed that it was an expiring gift. They experience death through those who returned and spoke of it and shrugged it off while trying to keep it from their eyes.

Everything changed.

Those who returned without brothers were reassigned and passed into ranks with strangers who no longer felt so strange when compared to the absence of former comrades. Fett's ARCs who had considered themselves above and apart from most for so long took to teaching what had made them so exclusive, not just by order but also their own desire. Many previous rivalries among batches and trainers alike were disbanded or forgotten or at least lessened. Even many of those who had openly disliked Zan and ignored Baro completely for ten years and had shared a few words or thoughts, now seemed to desire the offer of them. Or perhaps they needed them themselves, and to see a batch complete once more.

They graduated with the ghosts of their forerunners and now stood discussing their departure from the only life they had ever known in a manner far more flippant than the men who raised them may have liked, but they knew no other way in which to do so. Zan and Baro had nothing they could offer beyond what they had already given and sacrificed on Kamino, and they were all eager to return that priceless favor in the only way they really could.

The reality was, that where they went now was as out of their hands as their births had been, and that was likely how it would remain and end. But it was what they had been created for, and they couldn't find much fault with a system that, while constricting, had also provided both the gift of their lives and time with those men in the first place.

It had been met with much teasing and amusement that Trust, Hatch and Surge and Ravi had not only been stationed on Coruscant, but also together.

"They knew they needed at least four of you to get anything done, " Nix joked and a few brothers behind him chuckled. They all stood in relative clusters of their assignments and he and those who laughed had been tallied to the 212th. Something worthy of a good deal of pride, though it was truly luck of the draw.

Ravi rolled his eyes. "They put us there because we can actually interact with civvies without thoroughly embarassing ourselves. They don't want everyone thinking we're complete bricks."

"Yeah, with your charm we won't have to worry about them getting the impression that we're dull," Rush gave an exaggerated pat to Ravi's shoulder. "...just complete and utter di'kuts." Ravi countered by sticking a tongue out and Rush laughed, the sound seeping from a helmet that was a stark contrast to everyone else's.

In the months after the start of the war, Alpha had initiated an advanced command training program that Rush had taken part of. Even though they had trained with Fett's ARCS intermittently over the years, they had never before done so with their armor and Rush had received his own set and wore it now with a mixture of pride and defeat. A brother apart in appearance as well as body and mind.

His seizures prevented him from being cleared to ship out with his brothers. It had aways been something that trailed his wake and he had spent the greater part of his years doing anything and everything to dismiss and overcome it. But, in the end there was nothing to prevent it. No way to not be himself.

As he joked and walked among them he secretly tallied their battalions, recorded their voices and faces.

It was strange to look around and know that this was the last time they'd stand this many strong and present. It was a bittersweet feeling. They had finally reached the day they had dreamed of since they'd learned of their purpose, back when they were small and wide-eyed new cadets. They were Troopers now, and their mission was finally being realized and it was a proud, overwhelming feeling tangled with the unknown and a deep unanticipated sense of loss.

They hadn't expected it-missing the normalcy of drills and mess and rack chatter in these halls, sterile and white and humming over the howling sea. In spite of being here, the endgame, having reached this point. They had looked to this moment their whole lives and now that it was here they found themselves missing what they'd leave behind. Not just Zan and Baro, who were as truly brothers as Rush and eachother were. But the place, and to a small extent, even their creators.

Many of them found themselves grasping for something, anything to cling to to bypass that feeling. Some found solace in the ideal of the Republic and the Jedi they'd serve. Some imagined returning to Kamino to train cadets of their own at some point, many planned reuniting with brothers between commands.

They all dreamed of the village they had been told was home, some day distant.

They considered the purpose of their standing there, then, milling about without instruction further than "just wait". They humored the thought that their trainers had one last surprise planned that would seal the end of all the borrowed and magical time properly before they all headed off.

The rain began to fall, a soft mist of it that wrapped them and the sun, muting color and sound and they fell to silence. Watching. Waiting.

And they weren't let down.

One last magic trick.

A small craft dipped into view from the thick clouds above, and when it landed they hadn't known what to think at first. A Jedi? A message from the fleet?

But it had been her.

They didn't have mothers. There had been no lullabies or scolding or fretting or spoiling dedicated so completely and absolutely by a woman on any of their behalves as they had witnessed in flashes and holovids.

Though sometimes they had pretended. And Zan and Baro had been first fathers and then brothers to them all in a manner as close to that as possible.

And they did have stories. Stories of one that they had pretended and grown to imagine was theirs. Over the years shreds of a voice to put to the term, and a face through pictures and holorecordings and eavesdropping on calls.

And it was her, standing there when the door of the ship opened. Long grey dress and green eyes and black hair catching the drizzle and wind.

For a moment everyone just stood where they were, frozen in their greeting except for their eyes, wild over eachother. Nothing was said and no one moved. Until-

"Mom!" Baro's voice was as startling as a sudden crack of thunder, and just as effective in setting them to motion. They snapped from their daze and scrambled to form a line of some semblance. Coming to attention and then faltering. Unsure. Zan chuckled at their predicament and motioned for them to stand at ease, and to remove their helmets. Baro had encompassed the lone woman in an exuberant hug and she too laughed. It rang out as Baro's call had, as engaging and clear and she released Baro to clasp Zan just as tightly when he stepped up to her.

They embraced for a long time and all of them could see her lips from where they stood, moving in whispers to his ears but the wind took her words before they reached them. They guessed it was something humorously chiding by Zan's and Baro's expressions.

Finally she released Zan and gave the two men before her both a playful cuff then crossed her arms.

"Your father runs off for a few weeks and brings me back one," she gave Baro a meaningful look before slipping bright eyes over them all for a second time. "You're gone for ten years and give me a hundred."

"And three. With any luck it won't be linear. The inn's not that big."

She shook her head with a grin that snagged Zan's.

When she stepped close they had all straightened subconciously. Not knowing how, or even why, but wanting to impress her in some way. Feeling self concious in a way they never had before.

When she stopped and reached up to put a hand to the cheek of the first man in line he fumbled, almost dropping his helmet in his distress. He flinched at his own display of clumsiness, caught and corrected himself. When he recovered he looked down at her embarassed, but she had smiled. Gave him a pat to the chest and a quick hug. Then demanded he tell her his name and that he call her 'mom' in a manner as indisputable as they imagined a true mother would. He was smiling when she moved on to the man beside him and repeated the greeting.

She did so with all of them. A hand to their face and a smile and a hug, asking their names as the wind tossed her hair and rain patterned their armor.

They were so distracted with her eyes and hands on them they didn't notice the other woman until she was directly across from them and Baro called out her name.

"Tula? Little Tula?"

He gave her a hug which she returned a bit more sedately although her eyes flashed merry. "You were nine! " He cried in dismay, pulling back and staring at her incredulously. He was still a study in shock when Zan shoved him away and pulled her into his arms.

"Who's that? " Ravi asked, turning to Hatch. The other trooper was blinking. He put a hand to his chin thoughtfully, squinting to see her better through the rain as Nix and Rush and many brothers beside them were.

"Tula. Zan's little sister. But she looks way different from the picture he showed us back then."

"Well, she was ten years younger then, " Nix mused, eyes dancing between her and Zan's mother.

"She's...really grown up." Rush thought aloud and those around him agreed with silent nods and wide eyes. There was amazement in his statement and their observation, in spite of its obviousness. Of course they knew people aged. They did at twice the rate themselves. But that was taken for granted from years of witnessing it so commonly amongst themselves. In their brothers it was expected, shockingly quick though it felt normal to them. They had seen the whole process from beginning until this point.

Zan and Baro had remained relatively the same, as had Zan's, their now, mother. But this was someone who had made a complete transformation without being seen. They tried to reconcile the images of the child they had seen then and the woman who stood across from them now.

"Did Zan's father have..?" Surge tilted his head in question, not as amazed by her age as he had no comparison, but struck curious by her appearance.

"Oh, you three never saw those holos of him. Yep. Same ears." Hatch verified. "Cute, right?" He gave Trust a nudge and got a smack to the side of the head.

Rush could feel the shifting of his brothers beside him in eagerness. Perhaps hoping she'd step closer so they could get a better look or the chance to greet her. But she didn't step up to them as Zan's mother did. Didn't touch or address them and stood watching them all curiously. But after a time she gave them a small, shy smile from behind hair blown over her face by the wind.

And she had sat with them quietly but companionably when they ate their last meal together that evening. She and their mother had been the cause of much disbelief and ruckus and hilarity of expressions from other batches as they ate. It was another moment in time, their last one together, simple yet surreal, and they all logged it to memory.

...

They clasped arms and shared grins and eyes with the men who had given them a second chance, a second life, and a home- improbable feats for their kind. Those who had been parents and siblings and teachers and friends. They embraced the two women who were soft and warm arms and smiles, tangible manifestations of more such impossible things. All four of them the stuff of stories and holovids, yet somehow theirs.

At last they turned to Rush. The look on his face was both encouraging and heartbreak.

A trooper stood at the base of the ramp of the cruiser, performing roll call. He'd seen their reaction to their numbers and was growing agitated at their delay. They appeared to be the last and he looked ready to yell at them, although he drew pause when he caught sight of the women. He straightened and blinked at them for a moment as though he couldn't decide if they were real or not, before casting a final glance in their direction, then returning to checking tallies on the holopad in his hands. He gave them the signal for five, eyes still averted.

Rush laughed and donned his helmet as they did theirs in fellowship.

"Get on, then." He tilted his helmet at the lone trooper across the hangar. "Go give that guy a hard time. Looks like he's never heard a joke in his life."

"Doesn't look like he even knows what a joke is," Ravi snorted. He turned to give Rush a last smack to the chestplate. "You'll be so bored without us. No one to prank or fight over bunk space with."

"And you'll have no ideas. Don't worry about me too much about the bunks. Mom's ship can't possibly have enough berths for all of us without doubling up. I may end up sharing space with someone much cuter than you guys and I certainly don't mind."

Surge coughed abruptly while Hatch chuckled and Trust twitched with the beginnings of a reprimand but Ravi had already pulled Rush into a head lock.

"You little..."

"Kidding! Just kidding!" Rush surrendered with a laugh. But it faded and Ravi let him go. When he spoke again it was with a sad smile they couldn't see but heard over their comms. "Take care, you di'kuts."

...

The loader was looking past them as they stepped up, visor on those they had walked away from. He looked like he wanted to ask something but then thought better of it, shaking his head. He settled on merely giving them a nod and clipped the 'pad to his belt, gesturing for them to head up the ramp as he led the way. "I've got your barracks and rack assignments. For the ride and planetside. Follow me. " He gave a nod to the droid in the bay as they stepped aboard. "All set. We're the last."

They followed the trooper through the hangar and down hallways that weren't too disimilar to those they had grown up with, though the color scheme was more favored of grey than the eerie white they had grown accustomed to and the ship hummed from fuel and sky rather than the touch of the sea.

Their division of the barracks was a bay of six, and they claimed four of the empty racks. One was taken and the lingering of the clone at the doorway told them he was the occupant. He hovered at a polite distance, as though unsure whether he should leave them all to settle in with privacy or climb into his own bunk. They gathered he was likely exhausted, probably having begun his shift and the task of herding clones to their spaces long hours ago and was keen on getting some sleep before lunch.

"You with us? " Hatch asked amicably. He moved aside from unpacking and gestured for the other clone to pass.

He have a nod of thanks, took a seat on his bunk and began removing his armor. "I'm your temporary squad lead until they assign you a sergeant."

"Oops." Ravi paused his own unpacking to look over at him sheepishly. Judging by the man's demeanor, Ravi expected a rebuke for their blatant disregard of a punctual departure not long in the coming.

The trooper glanced at him for a moment, expressionless and examining him closely. But then he simply snorted and returned to unfastening his shin guards.

Hatch laughed and extended and arm.

"Hatch."

The clone paused what he was doing and blinked at it for a second before leaning forward and taking it with a small smile.

"Lex."

...

Haha, Lex has no idea what he's in for. :)

And that's the end of this arc. I hope you guys liked it. The next will focus on Rex and Cody and Thorn and Fox. I'm not sure when the next update will be, there might be another lag like this one because I'm still trying to get kindy lessons in order.

But, if you're following The Other Side (such spoilers I've given in this chapter for that ;) ) and TOC they should hopefully be updated soon.


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